


A Red Star Glinting in the Night

by RedMoon616



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety Disorder, Avengers Family, Borderline Personality Disorder, Claustrophobia, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Human Experimentation, Identity Issues, Internal Conflict, Lack of Social Skills, Mild Gore, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Childhood Abuse, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Build, Social Anxiety, Trust Issues, Unstable Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:17:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 48,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7334953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedMoon616/pseuds/RedMoon616
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In between shattered memories, she recalls a glint of shiny metal and a blood-colored star.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The incident

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is my second fanfic and I'm not really good at writing about characters that I didn't create myself, so try to bear with me. Also, I'm not a native English speaker, so there might be a lot of errors. I'll try to correct as much as I can, but if you want to help feel free to, I would really appreciate it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -“Hello, 911, what is your emergency?”
> 
> -“Hi, I will like to report a robbery.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very first short chapter as an introduction to the context of the story.

 

Wednesday, 09:01 a.m. Avengers Tower, New York, NY.

 

   “And they left no trace whatsoever? How is that possible, for them to skip even S.H.I.E.L.D.’s security measures? This can’t be just a group of hackers, not a normal one anyway. What about Hydra? Maybe one of their remaining agents went rogue…” Tony can’t really believe what he’s hearing. He wonders how this is possible, for someone to surpass S.H.I.E.L.D.’s security parameters and systems.

   “If by ‘rogue’ you mean trying to seek redemption, otherwise I don’t see how any Hydra agent would go through so much trouble to do all of this. Whoever it is, they believe that they’re playing Robin Hood by robbing all of these banks.” The conflict in Steve’s eyes is evident, he’s unsure whether to applaud them or go after them seeking justice. Although sort of a noble act, the fact remains that a crime was committed, even if it was done with good intentions.

   “The point is: there’s someone messing with us. They think that they can rob half of Wall Street without getting caught, and so far they’re right. If we don’t take action and find these guys then we’ll look like fools. This is not an alien threat, neither a secret military agency from the other side of the world. We shouldn’t even be called to solve this in the first place, it’s not our job to deal with this kind of problems; we always take care of bigger ones.” Everybody silently agrees with Tony’s comment, this is a delicate matter that can’t be disregarded as a minor incident.

   “Yes, but since no one can figure out who’s responsible for the robberies they’d seek our help. It might seem petty, but there must be a reason why they’ve called us. It’s our duty to help, Tony, no matter how big or small the threat. Now, what do we know so far about these guys?”

   Tony huffs indignantly but settles for silence eventually. The air in the room hangs with a certain amount of tension and frustrating impotence. Over the course of one night, billions of dollars disappeared from the virtual reserves of several world-renowned banks located in the Financial District of Manhattan. Nobody has discovered the perpetrators or the reasons behind such act; all there is it’s speculation and wrongly attributed blame.

   “The breach in the security system was perpetrated Tuesday night between two and four in the morning. Seven bank reserve accounts were compromised and sustained critical drains from their monetary resources. Although highly illegal, the people who accessed the accounts did it cleanly. They hacked into it without leaving any trace of doing so. It wasn’t found out until a few hours later when the banks opened. We’re talking about professionals in the programming and hacking fields, not amateurs who are trying to land themselves a position in the Anonymous group.” Even Maria Hill can’t hide the hint of sarcasm under her monotone voice. Without showing it, she’s stating her chagrin with the situation. Everybody feels the same way.

   “How much did they steal again? I believe it was a mere 4.3 billion dollars, right? Not much by ‘big fish’ standards, but still a lot. And all of this money was given to people whose economic situation was remarkably bad, at the point of entering the destitute demographic of the population. _All_ of it was given away, so whoever did this never took home a couple of millions. This leaves us with two conclusions: one, they already have more than they need; or two, they have enough. The point is they’re not stealing for themselves; they’re doing it for others. As unbelievable as it is, we’re in front of a modern version of Robin Hood.” No matter how much everyone hates to state it, Stark is right. The people behind the incident are not evil per se; they’re just looking to help those in need.

   “So how do we proceed? We don’t have any information on the group or individual who did this, or how they did it. How are we supposed to catch them if we don’t have any leads? We might as well just let them get away with it. I mean, if The Avengers can’t do anything about it, who can? In all honesty, I doubt that they even deserve to be caught. Since when do the ‘Earth’s mightiest heroes’ protect the wealthy from the poor?” Steve ponders out loud, and to a certain extent, he might be right.

   “Since those who steal are considered a dangerous threat to the future of the world. Yes, they hacked some bank accounts. But that was yesterday, tomorrow they could hack into any intelligence service or even the Whitehouse, we don’t know for sure what their next move will be. And if we want to find out we better catch them before we see it on the morning news.” Fury’s sudden appearance doesn’t bring any more calmness to the group of heroes, who are only getting more distressed by the passing hour.

   “When they start seeing the governments as potential threats against the population, they’ll strike them as well. We can’t let that happen if we want to maintain order in this country and the world in general.” Nick’s voice weighs with the threat of impending chaos looming over their heads. He’s right in his own way. Nevertheless, his speech about national security doesn’t change the fact that they still don’t know anything about the criminals they’re looking for.

   “We can’t wait till they strike again nor we can catch them since we have no data about them. What are we going to do then? It’s useless to waste time, but we’ll waste resources trying to find them when having no clues. So, what now?” Steve feels helpless with the current state of the situation, not knowing where to stand. They’re at a crossroad here, being unable to help due to the lack of information but with a burning need to do so anyway.

   “We’ll search this city upside down until we find them. I want people looking through every camera of every street, building, and house. If there’s no way to access it or there isn’t one, that’s our first sign. Get to it.” Fury leaves with an air of contempt presumably directed at the perpetrators of the robbery.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doesn't tell much but it's a good start.


	2. The asset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark. Cold. Damp. Silent. Lonely.  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> Bright. Hot. Dry. Loud. Crowded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the real story begins.

 

Thursday, 01:23 p.m. Manhattan, New York, NY.

 

   She wakes up suddenly and violently after the nightmare, disoriented at first by the place that surrounds her. A few seconds later she recognizes the abandoned building that she’d made her new “home”. The room has a cool temperature that chills her to the bone, but there’s nothing that she can do about it. There’s no heating whatsoever and she only has a couple of blankets which she’s already covered with. She thinks back to the place that she used to live in and distantly remembers that it wasn’t much warmer than the one she’s currently residing in. Still, she’s content that she isn’t living there anymore.

   The nightmare was the same as yesterday and the day before that. Every time she closes her eyes she sees a continuous loop of scenes that play on repeat over and over again. There are little changes with every new dream; more information appears that she didn’t know previously. She remembers a bit of what life was like before everything came crashing down. It wasn’t good, but her current situation isn't any better.

   The memories are scarce, foggy and fragmented. She can only discern them by two distinctive characteristics: normalcy or chaos. She knows that it wasn’t peaceful, it never was, but she’d grown used to the consistency of the examinations, experiments, and tests that her caretakers and scientists ran in the laboratories and adjacent training grounds. She doesn’t remember any other places besides those, which makes her believe that she has never left the labs and that she has lived there her entire life until the attack.

   Usually, the nightmares are about that dreadful night. Although she appreciates her newfound freedom, it wasn’t a pleasant experience at all. She still recalls the sheer terror that engulfed her when she saw him. She can’t see him clearly in her dreams, appearing only as a shadow with something metal glinting brightly. She ran after encountering him; ran through the infinite hallways and labs till she found an exit. After that, her recollection of memories stops abruptly and starts again anew. Most likely this is a consequence of hitting her head at some point, only she can’t remember that happening at all.

   Her cell -or “bedroom”, as they preferred to call it so it sounded less hostile- was small and held only a bed, a desk, and a joint bathroom. It didn’t have any heating, and even when not exposed to the outside temperature (like her current residence) it was quite cold. And damp, a consequence of the facilities being constructed under a lake. The dampness of the ambient didn’t help to ascend the already cold temp. There wasn’t much light in any room that wasn’t a lab’ or a training field, so she was in almost constant darkness whenever in her quarters. She was accustomed to it, but she didn’t like it. The labs were always so bright that she was briefly blinded every time that she was taken there.

   What she remembers the most is the silence and loneliness. Despite being surrounded by scientists while in the laboratory, she was used to no more than two or three people at a time around her. While usually accompanied by her caretakers, there were eerie moments when she was left alone with soldiers and or military officers. That happened mostly when she was in the training room or being questioned about her development. She hated the interrogation room, especially because they shocked her when she didn’t answer a question or didn’t do it correctly. The soldiers were the worst, always serious and unmoved by anything they saw, no matter how cruel and gruesome it was. They didn’t care if she was hurt in any kind of way. The scientists weren’t bothered by it either, as long as it was with a scientific purpose for an experiment. Her direct caretakers were the only ones that resembled anything close to a normal human being, showing concern for her or at least pretending to.

   She hated the place and everyone who worked there, even when that was all that she knew. She didn’t even know that there existed anything else outside the facility. They taught her about the world, but she thought for so long that it wasn’t real that she couldn’t believe it when she made it out. Seeing the sky for the first time was breathtaking.

   Her latest dream showed her what happened after she left. She hid in the nearby woods and watched from afar as the intruders finally left. When she was sure that the place was clear, she went back looking for someone that could help her. Her caretakers were all dead and half burned. Everyone was killed by the men that attacked the facility. The only thing that she could do was gather her few things and anything that seemed useful. Then she ran away without looking back, letting herself be carried by her own feet in an unknown direction. She started following a road that she found near the lake, but as soon as she stepped on it, she saw him again. The man with the glinting metal thing was right in front of her, with a rifle aimed at her. Before she could react and move out of the way, he fired and shot her right in the head. That’s when she woke up with agitated breathing and a killing migraine. She touched her forehead and found a slight circular mark right in her hairline, like a scar. She couldn’t remember it being there before like she didn’t remember being shot. That would explain the memory loss, but how did she survive the injury?

   It probably has to do with the experiments they did on her. She knows that she’s different, and not in a good way. There has to be a reason why they trained her the way they did; and also why they were attacked. She’s unsure whether they were just trying to destroy the labs and kill everyone who worked there or looking for something. She’ll never know.

   She has been running and hiding since she woke up. She ended up in a city called New York by pure coincidence since she didn’t know where she was going in the first place. She followed the road where she had woken up, the same one that she sees in her dreams. She was overwhelmed when she first got to the enormous city, terrified by how many people live in it. All the commotion reminded her of the attacks, even when she wasn’t aware at that time of them happening at all. Once she had surveyed a part of the city she came across an inhabited building in which she decided to stay for some time until she’d figured out more about her past and what to do with her future. The only thing she knows now for sure is that she would rather die than go back to that lake or anyplace similar. She has already suffered enough.

   With all the memories she has collected so far she can start putting the puzzle together. It was at night and after lights out when it happened. She was already asleep when the first explosion blew half of the main lab. Then the alarms started to go off, signalizing that the facility was under attack. She got up and grabbed her clothes, trying to get dressed as quickly as possible. The door only unlocked from the outside, so she waited for someone to come and take her out. But as minutes passed no one came to her rescue. She was then forced to free herself from her tiny cell by pushing the door until it bulged and flew across the hallway, hitting the wall on the other side with a loud crash and then falling to the floor with a clatter.

   A second explosion went off as she ran through the empty hallways. Her first instinct was to get away from the places where the fighting was probably happening, but she knew she couldn’t get out on her own. And even if she could manage that, it would be useless since she had never been to the upper level of the base. So she ended up heading towards the main lab area, where she believed that the first explosion took place. There she was faced with raging flames engulfing the entire lab and a few people that got trapped in it. The temperature was almost unbearable and it was hard to breathe due to the smoke. She went back in the direction she came in to find another way to the second largest laboratory, which was placed behind the first. On her way there she found a lot of scientists and staff members running in all directions, trying and failing to find a safe place to stay in or a gate through which get out.

   The dark, cold and damp place she once knew was eradicated by the fire and explosions bringing it down. Everything was too hot, loud and bright. It felt crowded in a way that she never knew before, not even when being on a demonstration in the lab. She could hear gunshots going off in distant places and closer ones. The only thing she could think of was getting to safety, but that seemed impossible at the time. She decided to go in the direction where no one was going and the one that also lacked battle noises. She thought that it would give her a better chance of not running into someone that could hurt her or worse. Unfortunately, she was wrong.

   She turned into an empty hallway, which luckily wasn’t on fire yet. It was obscured by the lack of any sort of light, and even when the distinctive sense of dampness in the air was absent it was still cold in there. She tried to walk as quietly as possible but she stepped over broken glass, presumably belonging to the shattered bulbs above her. As soon as the sound echoed through the hallway, she knew she had made a terrible mistake. She looked up and there he was…the shadow; black as a void, with something metal on him. He had long hair; a dark curtain covering his features. That’s the only detail she can recall from her memories. He was tall and broad, so big compared to her small frame. He lifted his rifle, pointing it at her, and prepared to shoot when a third explosion went off right next to them. The falling debris distracted him for enough time, opening a window for her which she used to escape.

   She looked back one last time and saw the metal thing again, shining angrily at her. This time, she noticed something that she hadn’t before: a red star. She kept running until she found an exit and then headed right to the woods. Fortunately for her, the ones that tried to escape - unsuccessfully- had opened the main gates and lifted the bridge, making it possible to cross the lake towards the shore.

   That’s all she can remember so far. Most of it is from the incident, and fewer memories are from the time before that. As terrifying as the attack was, she has the inkling feeling that those memories aren’t pretty at all. After all, one of the most disturbing and scary involved the phrase “the greatest man-made weapon of all time”.

 

* * *

 

   She didn’t know people, at least not the normal kind. She didn’t know the world either, at least not the real one. Her self-education began when she escaped and came to the city. She learned a lot of things, but most importantly: she finally learned why she was created for. War, it always came down to that; mutual destruction or the annihilation of another party. She became repulsed by the idea that she could kill anyone, that she was conceived to do that. She came to understand the ongoing battle between the human race; those with power against those with nothing. Only people with pockets full of cash could afford to pay something like her, just to use her in order to keep their positions safe against anything or anyone that could threaten it. She was made by the rich to fight the poor.

   “Weapon of mass destruction” is another denomination she feels familiar with. They talked about her like she was another nuke in their arsenal. And probably she was, but she has broken free from their grasp. She can choose her own destiny now, and what to do with it.

   She read everything that she could put her hands on, first going to the public library and then at the building she had made her home. She stole a computer so she could research more. She felt guilty about it but swore to herself that she would return it or compensate the person somehow. Once she had gathered information about as many topics as she could cover, she started to form a plan. She was made with the sole purpose to oppress those in dire situations, so now she would seek a way to help them instead.

   She taught herself about computing, programming, and hacking, so she could hack bank accounts and transfer money to those who barely had any. While doing this, she realized that she already knew some of this stuff. The only conclusion that she could make was that she learned about it while in the facility. Maybe they didn’t train her only as a weapon but taught her how to be a spy or an assassin. She read about those and didn’t like them one bit.

   She hasn’t found anything related to the base or the people that worked there, but she did found files regarding the men that attacked them. She wanted to know more about the man who shot her but became too overwhelmed by memories at that time. The only thing that she got to discover is that -whoever he is- he works for a terrorist organization named Hydra.

   She hasn’t left her building since the robberies, too paranoid to even look out of a broken window in the fear that somehow someone would get a hold of her. She doesn’t know if the people that held her prisoner since who knows when are looking for her. The probability that that wasn’t the only base is high. And even if they aren’t after her, someone else surely is, even if they don’t know who she is or that they’re looking for her. The robbery was a big deal, she’s aware of that. The bankers, the police or the government; someone is searching for the culprit.

   Nevertheless, her provisions are down to zero and she needs to go out and get something to eat. Grabbing her thick coat -which she bought among other things using some of the money she stole- to protect her against the biting cold (she hates it since it reminds her of the lake base), she goes down the flight of stairs and makes it into the night reigned streets. If only she knew better than to leave the safety of her hideout.

   She makes it to Times Square before she senses that something’s off. She feels observed by several people. Someone is tailing her. She hopes that whoever is following her, doesn’t know about her hiding place. All she needs to do is lose them in the crowd and go back without being noticed. That would work if they weren’t everywhere. She sees them, surrounding her in all directions. There’s no escape; not an easy one at least. She goes for a run towards the widest space in between them and makes it past their line-up. As expected, they give chase.

   Two of them start flying while the rest either run behind her or are riding motorcycles.  _Well, isn’t that just great_ _?_ She thinks grimly while taking a quick glance behind her back. She discerns a man in a red, blue and white suit holding a shield with his left arm. He’s directly behind her, somehow managing to keep up with her inhuman speed. It was always obvious to her that she wasn’t the only altered human, but she never thought that she would meet another one so soon.

   The man yells at her to stop, but of course, she doesn’t listen to him. That’s when he throws the shield at her and she barely manages to dodge it in time. Strangely enough, the thing goes right back to the man as it were some kind of boomerang.  _It’s quite useful, though_. She doesn’t have more time to ponder about the defense-item-turned-weapon as there’s a woman on a motorcycle trying to cut her path. She stops, swirls around the vehicle and keeps running, never missing a beat. In this kind of situation, her training comes in handy.

   She turns right around a corner and crosses the street mid-block to go through an alley. The flying men are near, she can tell by the noise their suits make. If she keeps going a bit stealthier she might get away. Once she’s out of the alley she looks in both directions and runs another three blocks. She notices by the second one that the man with the shield and the woman in the bike are getting nearer and nearer, shortening her window to escape. As she rounds a corner abruptly she waits for the two of them to pass her without knowing where she is.

   The calmness allows her to breathe out in relief for a second until she realizes that she isn’t alone. She looks to her right and notices him. How he managed to sneak on her like that, she can’t be sure. All she can think about is the long hair and the black clothes and the rifle he’s holding. She’s frozen in place for a moment, panic making alarms go off in her brain. Fight or flight situation; that is until she sees his left arm, which is metal and has a red star painted on the shoulder.

   Sheer horror takes hold of her body, immobilizing it while her mind is too occupied with a myriad of memories from that night playing over and over again. She feels weird, like if she were to vomit or pass out. She senses a strange vibration going through her, like if there was something trying to get out from her insides. The man with the metal arm widens his dead eyes, showing fear for the first time -at least that she knows of- and pulls the trigger. This time she knows for sure that he shot her, if only for the burning sensation in her left shoulder instead of her forehead. In a state of shock and without taking her eyes from the man she touches the wound and lifts her hand only to find it covered in blood. She looks back straight ahead and notices what resembles regret plastered in the tall man’s features. This is the last thing she sees before passing out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything should start to clear out in the next chapter.
> 
> Thanks for reading and let me know if you liked it or what your thoughts are. If you find any mistake I might have missed you're welcome to tell me.


	3. The past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -“Hydra has the Winter Soldier, so we’ll have our own weaponized human. All we need is to get a hold of that artifact.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Third time's a charm goes the saying. Not quite the case this once. Third meetings can go wrong.

 

Friday, 07:41 a.m. Avengers Facility, Upstate, NY.

 

   “Look, he already said that he’s sorry Tony. He didn’t do it with a killing intent, only as a means of self-defense. He’s changed and you know that. His days of being a brainwashed assassin working for Hydra are long over.” She can hear the talking far away and up close at the same time as if the person speaking was in the next room. Her enhanced hearing must be picking it up through the walls due to her head-splitting migraine reducing her control over her senses.

   She tries to concentrate on shutting off the hushed voices which are arguing over someone else and instead pay attention to her surroundings. She’s not in her abandoned building, that’s for sure. Where she is now, she has no idea. Her eyes open slowly, the weight of her grogginess pulling her eyelids back down insistently. She manages to open one so she can look around the room she’s in. It’s an interrogation room. As soon as she notices her eyes fly open completely and she starts to look frantically in all directions, searching for a way out. There are only two; the two-way mirror and the door behind her. She straightens up only to discover that both of her hands are cuffed to the metal table in front of her.  _No, no, no, no_.

   She starts thrashing in her chair, trying to get up, until she pushes back the damn thing which falls to the floor. The men in the neighbor room stop talking and presumably look through the mirror to see what she’s doing. There’s no other way than to force the cuffs and tear down the door from its hinges. She hears movement on the other side of the wall and starts getting more and more distressed, thinking that if they get in the room that’ll be it for her.

   The metal cuffs bend to her will and snap off of her hands, freeing her from the table. She turns around and gets right in front of the door, ready to push it like the one that used to belong to her old cell. Despite the dizziness and panic, she feels the odd sensation from last night surging through her. As wary as she feels about it, it seems somehow familiar to her. Like if this wasn’t the first time that she felt the exact same way. She looks down and sees with growing horror that there’s some kind of black substance coming out of her. She attempts to touch it but she can’t and her hand goes right through the blackness. It seems like a gas, but it moves like if it were fire. From somewhere on the back of her mind she finds that the correct description is energy. Is this the ultimate result of all the experiments that they did with her? What is the black thing anyway?

   It’s not the right time to question this as she senses the men right behind the door and about to open it. She tests her ability with her new-found powers and aims the energy straight to the door in hopes that it will be enough to blow it off. It’s really hard to control it, but she manages and the metal door goes flying down to the other side of the wide hallway. Outside of the interrogation room are two men standing to each side of the doorway, looking astonished at what just happened. She recognizes the one on the left as he’s still wearing the same suit as last night. This is what sends her running in the direction of the second man, who’s only wearing a tailored suit. She gets past him without much trouble and is pursued by the other one, who’s thankfully lacking the shield.

   She doesn’t know where she’s going or where the exit can be found, so she starts spreading her senses all around her (not consciously knowing how). After a few more doors she passes she finds one that opens up to a larger area which is mildly crowded. The man, still in pursuit, yells at her to stop and that he only wants to talk to her. She blocks his voice out in order to find a way out of the building only to be distracted by a female voice sounding through the speakers all over the place. Her headache is getting substantially worse to the point that she can’t think clearly, and her nose is starting to bleed. She looks around at all the people either walking past her or staring at her intently. Confusion dwells deep inside her clouded mind, not understanding what’s going on and too scared to even move at this point.

   She turns around and finds the man in the blue, red and white suit standing a few feet away from her. His face shows concern and kindness, trying to convey that he doesn’t represent a threat to her. She doesn’t trust him, or anyone there, feeling that all these people could be working for the same organization that made her life a living hell or the one that tried to kill her.

   “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you. My name is Steve and I only wish to ask you a few questions. If you follow me back to the…” He begins to say but her sudden raising panic and the shaking of her head cut him short. He concludes that she’s afraid of confined spaces like the interrogation room, so instead thinks about some other places where they can carry out the interrogation without her lashing out at them. “Okay, don’t worry, I get it. We won’t go back to that room; we’ll seek some other place so we can chat more comfortably. What do you say?”

   She nods hesitantly, not sure about what she’s getting into. Maybe if she follows him to wherever he wants to go she might find a way out. She only hopes that this new place he’s taking her to is not a cell or anything of that sort. The man leads the way through some hallways and stairs until they reach what looks like some kind of lounge-kitchen-conference-room. He tells her that she can sit on the table if she wants but she decides to remain standing close to the door. He notices this but says nothing, not wanting to spook her more than he already did.

   The other man, the one with the black three-piece suit, walks in and goes straight for the kitchen, not even bothering in looking at the other pair. He starts to make some coffee while looking at some kind of transparent screen the size of a Smartphone. She’s unsure whether that would seem rude and offensive or actually a sign of understanding by backing off and not intruding in their conversation (and by proxy making her even more uncomfortable).

   She feels like a deer caught in the headlights, trapped without escape. She wishes to end this quickly and get out as soon as she can. She doesn’t feel safe in this place. The man named Steve takes a seat in front of her and starts talking again with an amiable tone. “So, why don’t you begin by telling us your name?” He asks out of curiosity and mannerism but she can’t quite understand the question.  _My name?_

   “I don’t have a name.” She speaks so quietly that only Steve can pick up what she said. He looks shocked and sad, not being able to grasp the full meaning of her statement. The man in the kitchen section is wearing a puzzled expression. He seems confused by the sudden tension on Steve’s shoulders.

   “What do you mean by that? Everybody’s got a name. Maybe you don’t remember yours.” He’s partially right, she doesn’t recall ever hearing someone calling her anything other than “subject” or “asset”. Regardless of her lack of memories, she knows from somewhere deep inside her that there’s a number attached to that first word.

   “Subject-D23U42.” That’s what her file said, she remembers now. She saw it that night when searching for useful things to take with her. She grabbed the file but hasn’t read it since then, too scared about what she might find written there. If she pushes herself hard enough she gets a feeling that there’s still another denomination that they used for her, but she’s unsure what that one was.

   “Wait, that’s your name? How…” Steve’s even more dumbfounded than before, starting to fear where this conversation could lead to. Something isn’t right about her and the entire situation.

   “Don’t play innocent, Steve, you know exactly why. We ran all the possible searches while she was unconscious and she’s completely off the grid. To be honest with you I’m not even sure if she’s human, to begin with.” Tony’s serious tone leaves no room for argument. Steve’s aware of the negative result every search threw back, but implying that she might be a victim of illegal experimentation is a whole different thing. He could be right, though, considering that she herself just said that her name is the word “subject” followed by a series of letters and numbers. It’s still quite creepy.

   She doesn’t like what the man in the kitchen drinking coffee just said. It’s a wrongly placed accusation. She might not remember or know a lot of things about herself and her old life, but one thing she’s confident about is her humanity. She can’t say that she’s  _still_  human, but that she was born one is a fact that she knows to be true.

   She looks back defiantly at Stark and holds the stare he sends her way. She’s not a monster but anything except that, as far as morality is concerned. She didn’t experience what love is, but she ain’t a psychopath either. She’s proud about the robberies; about taking from those who have more and giving it to the people who have less. That’s what heroes do, right? They protect and help those who can’t do it themselves.

   “Tony, could you at least show some semblance of sensibility? She’s just a kid.” Steve cries exasperatedly. Since the initial conflict over the accords, there has been a tense friction between the two. Tony’s come to terms with the fact that Bucky was under Hydra's mind control when he killed his parents, but that doesn’t mean he has forgiven him completely.

   All of the Avengers agreed that they need to leave their differences aside to serve a greater good. Once all of the mess was cleared out and new accords were proposed, they decided to be under a certain level of control from the UN. They’re a semi-private organization now, assisting where the United Nations tell them to, but being able at the same time to help in other situations where they’re not explicitly called upon. So far it has worked fine. Barnes was held under psychological testing for a few months after defrosting and deemed functional enough to be released into the watch and care of the superheroes. After some experiments and three months worth of mind control research, they managed to reverse it. Nowadays, Bucky’s mind is clean of any brainwashing residues that Hydra left inside his head. There’s no risk of him reverting back to a mind-controlled state unless someone starts the process again from scratch.

   “Technically, she’s a criminal. She stole more than 4 billion dollars. A kid doesn’t do that kind of stuff; they don’t even know how to do it in the first place.” Tony’s more relaxed now, lowering the tone of his voice and looking more tired than angry. The last months have drained him completely; having to go through the trouble and stress that represented helping the man that murdered his family was more of a burden than a relief.

   “I was only helping people in need. I did nothing wrong.” She defends herself stubbornly, knowing that stealing isn’t good but weighing it out against providing for others who are in need. Maybe it wasn’t the right way to do it, but those are the ways that get things done. Only by breaking the law she could be able to help the poor people of this country. There’re still a lot more problems that need to be solved, but she can only go one by one.

   “And that’s the exact kind of thinking that assures me that you lived your entire life in a lab. You don’t care about society’s rules or breaking them; you want to make right by helpless people without taking into account the other part of the population. While you helped a portion of humanity you attacked another. The money you stole belonged to millions of American citizens who put their life savings in those banks. By giving more to those who had less you only changed places. Now those who had some money have nothing and are in the same situation that the ones you helped were at the beginning of all this. Did you ever stop to think this whole thing through? No, you didn’t, because you have no concept of the world or the people living in it.” Tony stops his agitated monolog and stares silently into the young girl’s eyes full of fear and confusion. He waits for an answer, even while knowing that he won’t get one.

   “I-I…” She doesn’t know what to say. He’s right, she sees her wrongdoing now. She was so into her heroic task that she didn’t stop to think about the people that would be affected and how. She was a fool to believe that there would be no negative effect caused by her plan. She wants to make things right, but she doesn’t think that they’ll let her. She wants to apologize, but she doesn’t think that’ll be helpful in any way. She’s at a loss for words, feeling like nothing more than a useless and spoiled brat (even though she wasn’t). What can she do to make amends with all these people?

   “Hey guys, Fury wants to talk with both of you…” Bucky says when poking his head inside the room. The moment he does this, though, he realizes he made a mistake. She sees him and pure fear starts to swallow her yet once again.  _ **He**_ _’s here?!_  She questions herself half terrified and half surprised. She instantly feels betrayed by the two men. How could they have a coldblooded assassin walking freely under their roof? Do they even know  _who_  he is?

   She feels the black energy starting to pour out of her body again while a cool sense of anger takes hold of her mind. She’s focused on one thing and one thing only: retribution. Bucky sees the rage plastered on her face as clearly as daylight and begins to back off deliberately slowly, never looking away for a second in fear that he might die if he does. Steve gets up and steps in-between the two of them, not wanting for either of them to get hurt. If that were to happen, he’ll stand on Bucky’s side and try to protect him with his life.

   Tony’s confused by her reaction towards the former Winter Soldier but imagines that they encountered each other while he was still under Hydra’s control. That surely wasn’t a pleasant meeting. He really doesn’t care if she manages to kill him, but feels rather concerned about the black gas-looking substance that started to slowly spin around her. That doesn’t seem harmless at all. He discreetly pushes a button on his wristwatch and pulls out an armored glove, ready to intervene if the situation calls for it.

   “Listen…he’s not going to hurt you, okay? You don’t need to be afraid or try to attack him. He’ll leave now and it’ll be just the three of us again. If he makes you uncomfortable we’ll make sure that you don’t see him again until you trust him to not be a threat. Sounds like a good deal to you?” Steve offers with both of his hands held up, showing that he doesn’t intend to strike either. After losing sight of the man with the long hair and metal arm she finally lets the energy dissipate and regains some of her control over her emotions. She shouldn’t have reacted like that. Now they know about her powers and will start to question her about them. They could even throw her back into the interrogation room for all she knows. The lone thought of them experimenting on her sends a shiver down her spine. She’ll rather die than let them make a rat lab out of her.

   “Why is that man here? He’s a murderer.” She’s talking out of spite, but also trying to divert the conversation that otherwise will surely go in a direction she doesn’t want it to. She’s done with things like that, and she doesn’t feel like spilling all of her secrets to some men that she barely knows. She knows better than to do that.

   Tony silently agrees with her and retracts the armor back into the watch. Both grown men look at each other and exchange an unspoken conversation about whether or not to tell her about Bucky’s past and current situation. There’s no assurance that she’ll believe them anyway. “He’s a friend,” Steve tries tentatively, measuring how much he can say without giving out too much but still managing to soothe her even the tiniest bit. “You might have met him during some extreme circumstances, but he’s not the same man he was then. He _has_ changed. He’s a good guy now. He works with us, the Avengers.” She stops by the last sentence, the name sounding oddly familiar to her. She must have seen it or heard it somewhere else before.

   “Look, you’re right kid. He  _was_  a murderer, but an unwilling one at that. He was forced to kill due to mind control and brainwashing, so it’s not really his fault. Whatever he did to you, he didn’t mean it.” Tony can’t understand what drove him to defend Barnes in the first place but feels like that is the right thing to do. He hopes that this way he at least gets to spare her from the suffering that he went and is still going through.

   “You know, maybe if you tell us exactly what happened we can find a way to help you. We're not seeking for anything else and we don’t have any ulterior motives. I swear.” Steve sounds honest enough. Even when she doesn’t trust any of them she gives them the benefit of doubt. After all, she can’t say that  _every_  single human being is as corrupted and cruel as the people who worked on that base.

   “Okay,” she says quietly and gives up the idea of escaping. She doesn’t know much about the world, not in practical ways; neither does about people and how to interact with them. If they truly want to help her, she should let them. Maybe she can seek a way to redeem herself by working with these so-called “Avengers”.

   Steve feels relief and joy filling his body. Step one has been taken successfully. Now they need to figure out who is she and what happened to her before they can try to make peace between Bucky and her. “Great, let’s pick up where we left: your name. Subject-D23U42 is way too long and not actually a name. Is there anything else the people you knew called you?”

   She thinks hard about this, trying to remember anything that resembled some kind of name. She looks down at her hands and takes the black energy in consideration for this. Somehow the two things are connected. They gave her a nickname, didn’t they? Black something. Black…“Black Sun.”

   Steve’s eyebrows shot up in surprise while Tony’s furrow in confusion. They named her “Black Sun”? It’s clearly a reference to her powers, at least the part about the color black. But what did the sun have to do with it? “‘The energy flows from the inside like solar flares burst out from the sun’. That’s what one of the scientists said. I remember now.” The memory came back suddenly, without being forced to. It’s a small victory for her, getting her name and a new memory back with such easiness.

   “You remember now? Does that mean that you lost your memories at one point?” Steve asks softly, trying not to upset her with his inquiry. Thankfully, she doesn’t seem thrown off by the question, but actually quite content by being able to remember that. Maybe she’s in the same predicament as Bucky and the people that held her captive wiped her memory. What he’s more intrigued about finding out is how she managed to escape them.

   “Yes, I lost them the night of the attack.” The painful memory of that night hits her like a truck, especially considering that the man that provoked all of that destruction is somewhere near in this building. She doesn’t want to dwell on that thought, but she can’t control her own mind right now. Seeing him left her emotionally and physically drained.

   Steve wants to ask about the attack she just mentioned, but it’s cut off by Tony’s mock-serious tone. “Scientists, huh? I guess that means that you lived in a lab and were experimented on. Right, Blake?” Steve face-palms at Tony’s lack of tact while “Blake” looks completely flabbergasted. “Oh sorry, I took the liberty of giving you a name since ‘Black Sun’ isn’t one, no matter how closer it gets than Subject-D23U42 to be one. Assuming that we could consider Black Sun as a full name then the closest thing to Black is Blake. That’s a real name, by the way. And your last name could be…Summers! It’s the closest thing that comes to mind. So you’ll be Blake Summers. You’re free to change it and choose any other you like since you technically don’t exist and thus don’t have a registered name. Geez, that already sounds like a ton of paperwork.” Despite the obvious sarcastic undertone, that Blake doesn’t seem to pick up, Tony's got a point. She’s going to need a name, along with other important things. Suddenly registering someone into legal existence isn’t an easy job. It’s gonna take a while and indeed a lot of paperwork.

   “Blake Summers…I suppose it’s okay; if you say so.” She’s obviously still accustomed to receiving orders instead of making her own choices, the three of them sadly realize. It’ll take some time, but she’ll manage to override that habit of hers.

   “Well then, Blake, could you tell us as much as you remember about your life and this attack that you suffered?” Tony takes a seat in front of Steve and it’s just then that Blake notices that she backed away from the door after Bucky entered until she ended right in front of the ceiling-high window panels. The view is beautiful, looking onto the outside nature. Plain and vast fields of grass and big patches of spread trees forming island-like mini forests.

   She tells them about her cell, the labs, and the general facility. She talks about her caretakers, the scientists, and soldiers. She recounts the experiments and training sessions, trying and failing to explain the former’s procedures. She’s as detailed as possible, which is difficult considering that is all based on confusing and isolated memories. Steve takes mental notes and physical ones while Tony tells Friday to record the whole thing and to start a search in every key subject she addresses such as people and places. They’re determined to help her and find out more about the organization that’s behind this.

   Blake becomes exhausted by just going through all of her jumbled memories. The effort that she has to make is beginning to give her a headache. One or both of the two men notice this and they stop asking questions for the time being. She can’t give them more than she remembers, so they’ll have to wait until new memories make their way back to her consciousness.

   It was the attack that set her free that disturbed them the most. Steve felt revolted by Bucky’s coldness when pulling the trigger with the clear intent of killing her. He needed to remind himself once again that he was still being controlled by Hydra and hence didn’t do it out of free will. That explained why she’s so scared of him and so set on trying to “pay him back”. The fact that he shot her again, this time in the shoulder, didn’t help his case either. They need to solve this problem or what they have in mind won’t work out well. Hopefully, for them, she survived the bullet to her head and the one to her shoulder (which healed completely after a few hours).

   The second most important thing they have to achieve is to convince her to let them run some tests and examinations of her body and powers since she doesn’t know much about them. They need to know how they work and how much of a threat they represent. They can get to it in the days to come, for now, they should get her settled and introduce her to the rest of the team. If things go well, she could become a new member. Surely enough, her knowledge and powers will become useful in the duty of keeping the world a safe place for humans to live in.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems that they started on the wrong foot, let's hope for a truce between the two.


	4. The team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -“I heard that they caught the person behind the robberies. Apparently, it’s a human-enhanced teenage girl.”
> 
> -“Great. Another one for the team then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blake meets the rest of the Avengers. Bucky has a hard time.

 

Friday, 02:35 p.m. Avengers Facility, Upstate, NY.

 

   Newly named Blake and both of her capturers-turned-potential-allies Steve and Tony headed over to the team’s sleeping quarters after paperwork for her temporary residence in the facility was filled and authorized. They can’t keep her in a cell or anything like that since she could go on a rampage and blow half of the building off for all they know. So they decide to install her in what was supposed to be Thor’s permanent bedroom, which is currently vacant as he decided to return to Asgard after the battle against Ultron.

   Blake had given the address of the place she was staying at till recently to Maria, so a few agents could go back to New York to retrieve the few things that she owns. They’d arrived by the time the group of three were checking the barely furnished room to make sure that the young woman became familiar with her new surroundings before starting to accommodate her stuff.

   To be honest, she didn’t have a lot of belongings, but if she decided to stay with them that could change over time. When Wanda came to live here she didn’t bring too much with her, and now her room is full of things that she got herself or the rest of the Avengers gave her. Blake can make this place her home too if she wants. Although this could prove to be an uncertain thing given the fact that Bucky’s room, which was actually made for Bruce but he disappeared after the Sokovia incident, is the only one that’s next to hers. She probably won’t like this arrangement, and there’s a probability that he won’t be comfortable with the idea either.

   The bedroom is quite spacious with a square-ish shape. The wall opposite to the entrance has full window panels that occupy half of it from ceiling to floor. The door is at the bottom right corner whereas the bed’s located on the top left corner with the headboard placed on the windowed wall. Right in front of the bed is the closet and to the left, there’s a desk, in front of the door. Other furniture includes a nightstand next to the bed and a chair for the desk. It’s not much but it will suffice her needs. There’s also a door between the closet and the bed, which leads to an en-suite bathroom.

   Once she organizes everything that she owns in the places that she thinks they belong in her new room, she walks back to the lounge with Steve and Tony to meet the rest of the team. _Well, here goes nothing._ She thinks a bit discouraged and nervous. Steve told her that she’ll be introduced to only seven people, who are the majority of the team. They are still a lot more people than she usually dealt with.

   When they enter the lounge for the second time today, Steve starts introducing the people in the room. Natasha -the woman who was riding the motorcycle when Blake was caught- is the redhead sitting on the couch next to Clint, the guy with short light-brown hair. They wave sympathetically at her when Steve names them. On the kitchen section trying to cook something is Vision, being assisted by Wanda; the former gives Blake the creeps since he _literally_ isn’t human at all. The young sokovian senses this but she’s more disturbed by the amount of power that she holds. Blake feels the same towards Wanda, being somehow aware that they have similar abilities and a possible shared past experience. Both are still wary of each other.

   In front of Vision and Wanda, sitting on the counter are Sam and Bucky. The first smiles friendly at her while the second just looks like he’s about to have a panic attack at any moment. She skips returning the smile and looks directly to the ex-assassin, sending a death glare towards him. Bucky feels highly uncomfortable and begins to consider leaving in order to not upset her, but the look he gets from Steve assures him that it’ll be okay.

   “So, this is the team. Well, a part of it actually. Some of our members are in a world far away and the others just have a better place to live apparently. You don’t have to get along with everybody, just try to not kill anyone and we’ll be good.” They all give Tony an unimpressed and not-entirely-amused look, denoting how tasteless his dark humor is. Blake glares at him, feeling offended just by the implication that she would hurt them without a reason to. Still, Bucky thinks quietly about the same thing, wanting nothing more than to be spared. He can’t even remember what he did to the poor girl, despite having Steve brief him about the attack on the base where she was kept.

   Blake takes a seat as far as she can from the kitchen without abandoning the group. She knows that the only reason they directed her this way was to have her interacting with the team to see what kind of chemistry would surface, so she can’t just turn around and go back to her new bedroom. She has to socialize, even with the man that tried to kill her. Does he even _remember_ her?

   Bucky glances over his left shoulder and gets a glimpse of Blake staring right at him with a murderous look on her face. He shares a look with Sam -who is as confused as him- and gulps down his fear of being stabbed in the back. This will not end well for him, that’s for sure. The tension in the room is palpable and everybody starts to exchange worried glances between one another. It’ll be harder to get the two of them on good terms than to help her get her memories back.

   “Well, we have time to get to know each other. The tests won’t begin until next week, so you’ll have a few couple of days to adjust to us and the place. You’ll probably have a meeting or two with some agents and therapists, just to talk so don’t worry about it. You can ask or tell us whatever you want. If you need anything just say so, we want you to feel comfortable here, Blake. We hope this place becomes as close to a home as it can, and that you think of us as some sort of family. We might fight and disagree sometimes, but we still care for each other. We’re all friends here,” Steve says and he sounds convincing, but Blake can’t tell who he’s trying to convince in the first place; her, the other guys or himself.

   She considers it for a moment, what it would feel like to have a home and friends; to have a family. To have what she has seen countless of times on the streets, on TV and on the Internet; what she, despite all the words that there are to describe it, refers to as a _lover_. Can she _love_ someone? Is she capable of feeling love for someone, anything? She hopes that she can, that whatever has been done to her hasn’t erased the possibility of falling in love. She wonders too, what kind of person she would fall for. Someone gentle, protective, caring maybe. A person that doesn’t fear her, that understands her. That loves everything that she is.

   Blake notices that she has been spacing out, looking entranced at the chess board on top of the coffee table while pondering about family and love. This behavior has attracted some concerned glances upon her, so she decides to flash a tentative smile of reassurance to calm the worry blooming inside her future teammates (if everything goes according to their plans). It’ll be hard to adapt to these people, mainly because she’s supposed to have a bond with them. Back in the lab everyone was so detached that she didn’t have to fret over things like trying to be liked by everyone and to not cause them any troubles that could abate their friendship. After all, that’s what they’re supposed to be, friends.

   “Lunchtime has come and past, but since you have been trying to settle until now you haven’t had any time to eat. You look like you’re starving, kiddo. So, whatcha want to eat?” Tony asks from the kitchen, moving between Vision and Wanda so he can peek into the fridge. “I would offer whatever Maximoff is cooking, but I got the feeling that you don’t have the stomach to try that weird eastern European cuisine that she likes so much.” This earns him a glare from Wanda and a scolding look from Vision, but none of them say something at the insult to Sokovian traditional dishes.

   Blake looks in his direction with a blank expression, confused by the fact that they would ask her what she _wants_ to eat instead of just giving her something and expecting that she eats it. “Lemme guess, you were fed with that innocuous and tasteless food which has the only purpose of keeping you from dying of starvation and malnutrition. Well, this ain’t some secret military organization facility. We have plenty of food, and since -and I’m just assuming this- you don’t know how to cook, we’ll gladly do it for you. And by ‘we’ I mean anyone that offers except me. So, take your pick.” Tony yet again receives another disapproving look, this time coming from Steve, but he can hardly care. He takes a water bottle from the fridge and says that he’ll be in the lab if anyone needs him (and also that he expects to _not_ be needed).

   Steve takes where Tony left off and asks Blake what she would like to eat. After she responds with the presumed “I don’t know”, Steve offers her to choose between something sweet or salty. She takes this into consideration for a whole minute and answers that she’s feeling like eating something sweet and light. All that is going on and the presence of Bucky is keeping her in an uneasy state. She thinks that if she eats something too heavy or too hard to digest she might puke it out sooner or later. Steve seems to understand this due to some kind of unspoken conversation and settles on cooking pancakes. Everybody loves the Cap’s pancakes.

   Five minutes later, when Steve has already made the batter -enough for four since Sam, Bucky and he wanted to eat some too- and started frying, the room is clear of everyone save for the three ex-soldiers and the young lady (who’s still sitting away from the kitchen). Tasha and Clint are sparring in the training grounds while Wanda and Vision enjoy their food in the park outside of the compound, having skipped lunch with the others so they could have a picnic on their own.

   The tension from earlier hasn’t dissipated in more than a fraction. Even with fewer people in the room, the presence of the former Winter Soldier is more than enough to put Blake in a state of alertness. Steve looks at her with a mixture of pity and compassion in his eyes, wanting to make her feel safe without having to send his best friend off to somewhere else in the building. He hopes more than anything that they’ll get along eventually, if even just a little.

   Once the pancakes are made -among tea and coffee- they move to the dining table so they can eat all together. Steve sits next to Blake and in front of Bucky, while Sam takes a seat next to Buck and in front of her. At first, there’s a certain wary silence that surrounds them, making the three grown men highly uncomfortable. They clearly don’t know how to handle this situation and she doesn’t seem inclined to help.

   Blake, surprisingly, is the one to break the silence by commenting how delicious Steve’s pancakes are. His first thought is that she felt compelled to say that, but he dismisses it in order to believe that she truly likes them. After thanking Blake warmly and telling her that he can teach her how to make them if she wants; the quiet returns but in a most pleasant way.

   Nevertheless, Buck feels more and more anxious as time goes by, thinking that this whole thing is just a time bomb about to explode at any given moment. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out almost unintelligible in Blake’s direction with an expression of mild panic. Sam looks at him confused, Steve looks concerned, and Blake is just too surprised that he’s addressing her, not even taking into account _what_ he said. His eyes start darting from one face to another, thinking that he might’ve made a mistake by suddenly apologizing to the teen for almost killing her.

   She looks affronted; like she didn’t even expect him to _apologize_ to her. Bucky is a little perplexed and disturbed by this, feeling guiltier than he did before; the fact that she considers him so evil and gone that he wouldn’t even ask for forgiveness is just too much for Buck to take. He looks down at his half-empty plate and suddenly loses all appetite. Excusing himself, the ex-assassin gets up from the table and goes to blow some steam in the training grounds with Natasha and the Hawk.

   The three remaining occupants of the table share a couple of glances between one another that don’t show anything short of perplexity. None of them were expecting something like that to happen, at least not in that way. Both men exchange a look that conveys the same understatement; they’re going to talk with Buck after this. Blake, on the other hand, just wishes that the weird and foreign feeling that the sudden outburst coming from the Sergeant evoked in her didn’t exist.

 

* * *

 

   Two hours had passed since she finished her pancakes and excused herself to go to her room. She’s been there accommodating her things over and over again, not being able to find the right place for everything. She did the exact same thing this morning, but after “lunch” she can’t help feeling restless. Blake tried to shake off her uneasiness by arranging things countless times, but thus far that hasn’t worked.

   Blake ends up heading toward the training room where some of the Avengers went after the little meeting they had earlier. She has to ask Steve, who points her in the right direction, and after five minutes of strolling around, she finds the right area. She hopes that by this time of day Bucky is long gone, but when she opens the sliding door of the gym she finds him in front of a punching bag. He’s hitting it so hard that the damn thing is threatening to fly off backward. At seeing this Blake starts to retreat, but as soon as Buck notices her, he backs off from the bag trying to stand in the calmest way that he can think of.

   Her eyes show fear, for the way that he angrily threw punches to the lifeless object that is the bag. She can’t avoid the thoughts that invade her, the ones that show her in the place of the bag, being beaten to death. He looks at her and sees fright dancing across her eyes, unspoken but solid. Bucky turns as if to grab his discarded hoodie so he can leave her be, but she stops him by telling him that he doesn’t have to go, that she was looking for the training room anyway. Before she closes the door behind her, she hears his question. “Do you need any help?” She doesn’t trust him; she doesn’t _want_ to trust him. But at the same time, she feels compelled to let him guide her through the corridors. This leaves her confused and a bit afraid.

   A couple of heartbeats pass silently between them and she finally nods to him. Bucky doesn’t even consider putting back on his sweatshirt, he just moves forward as if a strange force is controlling him; too enthralled by her to even care. He should be worried about this, but his mind is too occupied with the task at hand.

   The corridor she waits in is thankfully deserted. She prefers to maintain this rare interaction with him between the two of them. The rest of the guys don’t need to know about this; otherwise, they’ll force them to spend more time together than they feel comfortable spending. That could lead to some dangerous situations if the right precautions aren’t taken.

   Bucky walks in front of Blake and heads to the training area where he was sparring with Natasha not an hour ago. He opens the door for her, his 40s chivalry as alive as him, and considers entering behind her. He thinks better of it and decides to just go seek Tasha or Steve since he’s been told to not let her train without someone looking over her. He tells her as much and leaves the room, feeling an odd want to remain beside her. He shakes it off and goes back to the lounge, leaving behind a Blake that feels the exact same thing as him but in a more befuddled way.

   A few minutes later Natasha walks in and smiles amicably at her, reassuring her that she means no harm. Blake feels a little lost, she has only trained when she was told to and only the way they taught her. She remembers in theory but is unsure if she does in practice. The Widow notices her uncertainty and walks closer, sitting cross-legged on the mat. This is supposed to make Blake feel safer, with Tasha showing that the teen possesses an advantage of height. Blake’s shoulders lower just a fraction, releasing some of her tension. It’s an improvement, a small but nevertheless important one. The red-haired woman starts talking without any prompting from the black-haired one. Blake thinks that it’s a strategy to calm her down further and feels relieved by it.

   Picturing the movements that she learned over the years she starts moving soundlessly, fighting against the air. The Russian recounts her years under the red hand of the KGB, what it felt like to be their puppet. Blake finds in her a mutual understanding of the things she went through, and a shared loathing towards the organizations that held them prisoners for years. It’s comforting to know that she isn’t the only one who went through Hell -as selfish as that sounds- or the only one that escaped. Her movements are more fluid now, feeling at ease with the older woman’s presence. This changes when she starts talking about Bucky -she refers to him as James, but after a couple of sentences she catches on about the topic of conversation. Blake begins to stiffen once again, her moves becoming sharper and more aggressive, deathly almost. Natasha’s aware that she doesn’t want to hear about him, but at the same time she knows that the younger woman needs to. It isn’t much anyway, just a few anecdotes of when he was a puppet too. She’s trying to humanize him to Blake, the teen is aware of that. For the most part, it doesn’t change anything, at least not as much as direct interaction with him did, but the Black Widow doesn’t know this new development in between the two.

   They keep going like this for quite a while, Blake going through all the martial art moves that she can remember and Natasha talking as a way to relax her. After a particular crude story of Bucky’s “adventures” as the Winter Soldier when encountering the Black Widow -and the show of a big and horrid scar- Blake comments about not being the only one in the group that he has shot (she might have used the word “asshole” when saying it). Surprised at the youngster’s choice of words Natasha mutters in Russian about she also not being the only one that he shot _twice_. When the teen turns to look appalled at her she notices with mild wonder that the girl knows Russian. They’ve probably taught her a bunch of languages, as they do with every spy. It’s still something to take a note of.

   Blake feels exhausted after the training/talk that she had with Natasha. Her only thoughts as of right now are taking a warm shower and filling her stomach with a proper meal before heading back to her room and fall asleep over a decent bed. Tasha accompanies her back to her room, placating any chance of her getting lost again.

   She spends half an hour in the shower, contently absorbing as much heat as she can. It feels amazing, the first hot shower that she has had in her life. In the base, she wasn’t allowed such commodity, and while hiding she was lucky she could even shower at all.

   Blake leaves her bathroom feeling cleaner than she ever remembers being. _God, this should’ve been the first thing that I did when I got here_. When she steps out of her room she almost crashes into Bucky’s back, which is turned towards her. She stumbles back and looks up, where she meets Bucky’s nervous gaze. His hair is damp and he smells like shampoo and soap -something that she finds intoxicating in sort of a good way. He looks at her apologetically for a few seconds more and steps back into the room he just came out from. This action hits her like a truck, the realization that his room is next to hers downing on her like freezing water. Oh, she’s gonna have a word with Tony and Steve about this.

   Dinner goes uneventful to everyone’s relief -it might be due to the lack of Tony’s presence since he lives in the Avengers’ Tower. Despite Blake flinching every time that Bucky grabs his knife to cut the meat -and eventually, he stops cutting it all together, after seeing the looks that she sends his way- the group chats quietly, while the two former experimented-on-assets limit themselves to listening to what the others are talking about.

   Steve and Wanda do the dishes as they’re the only ones that grew up in a normal family ambiance -Bucky has too, but Steve prefers to take the chore into his own hands. The rest say their round of goodnights and head over to their respective rooms. Blake scurries into her own as quickly as she can, avoiding bumping into Bucky again. The last thing that she wants is to walk face first into his back or chest. She has embarrassed herself enough for today.

   Blake slowly peels her clothes off of her body, methodically folding them and putting them away in the closet. While she spent the day in the compound, Maria Hill arranged for someone to go to the city and buy some clothing for her, including underwear and pajamas. She appreciates that whoever bought the clothes was thoughtful enough about her tastes; every item is black in color. She puts on her baggy pajama bottoms and shirt and climbs into her soft bed. The mattress is cozy and it feels like she’s lying on top of a marshmallow. There’s only one blanket over her but teamed up with the heating system it provides more than enough warm for her to feel comfortable. She has only dreamed of sleeping arrangements as luxurious as these. For the first time in her life, she believes that she might sleep soundlessly the whole night.

   This hope is shattered when a couple of hours later she starts having a nightmare, the same one that she always has. In the dream reality, she doesn’t know that she’s safe, living with the mighty Avengers. No, in her nocturne hallucinations she sees the Winter Soldier burning her whole world down and killing her once again, like every night after the attack. Blake starts to turn in her sheets, her breath ragged and uneven. She’s sweating like she was surrounded by the flames from that night. She weeps and wails; desperate sounds that can’t be heard by a normal human being. But the super soldier sleeping in the room next door isn’t a simple human anymore. Bucky hears her in the middle of his own agitated dreams. Blake’s whimpers and disgruntled moans wake him up and alert him that something is wrong.

   He registers -after pushing away the last of his grogginess- that the sounds of discomfort are coming from the room to his right: Blake’s room. He considers waking up Steve to tell him but chooses against disturbing his best friend peaceful sleep (he doesn’t have those often either). He can opt to leave her to deal with it on her own or go into her room and try to wake her up. Bucky knows from firsthand experience what her dreams must be like, about experiments and torture. He wants to spare her from the memories resurging through her sleep, but he can’t deny being afraid of what she might do to him before and after she wakes up.

   The same strange feeling -that he felt earlier- takes a hold of him and compels him to stand up from his bed. He moves silently, through the shadows, like when he’s on missions. Bucky makes it to Blake’s room and stops to softly knock on the wooden surface. There’s no response, so he just takes the knob into his human hand and opens the door. What he sees inside twists his heart mercilessly: she looks lost and afraid, trying to escape from a reality that no longer exists. He wonders if he sometimes appears in her nightmares; if she can see vividly what he cannot remember. Bucky has never wished more to have died when he fell off of that train.

   He walks closer to her bed, deliberately slow; measuring every step as if he were to fall if he made a wrong move. The soldier shuffles in his mind different ways he can use to wake her up; speaking to her from a safe distance, or shaking her gently until she comes back to herself. Maybe he can just turn on the lights and leave before she even notices his presence. That would be the safest one. Weirdly enough, he feels an obligation to lean in and shaking her carefully into wakefulness. He is unsure whether it’s just stupidity coming from his sleep-deprived brain or something else entirely. Something akin to a sense of protectiveness, he muses with confusion marring his features.

   Blake’s nightmare must be at her peak because she’s becoming more distressed by the second. Bucky grabs one of her shoulders -with his flesh and bone hand, of course- and shakes her gently, whispering her name in an attempt to wake her up from her night terrors. When she finally opens her eyes, these are two black holes staring into a couple of stormy-blue-sea ones. The sight of such unnatural darkness takes Bucky’s breath away for a second, but the next thing that does this is not as pleasant. In the blink of an eye, he’s pinned to the closet opposed to the bed. Blake’s looking at him with fear and hate plastered on her face (mostly fear). She has backed away as much as her bed would let her, cornering herself in the hope that she’ll be safer this way. What she’s slow to realize is that she’s already out of his dangerous grasp since she pinned him to the wall with her powers. The black energy is holding him in place, not letting him move any of his limbs. He tries to reason with her, to make her aware of her new surroundings, but the black stuff starts closing over his neck, choking the air out of him. The pressure increases ever so slightly, forcing him to gasp for the last bits of oxygen that he’s going to get before his throat closes completely. He can’t fight her powers, he knows. But if he can move enough to make some kind of noise and alert the others then he’ll have a chance of leaving her room alive. Bucky manages to kick his right foot on the wooden door of the closet and concentrates on holding in as much air as he can gather. Three minutes go like this, with the pressure never residing, threatening to cut his entire head off just with the force she’s putting into the choke.

   The door to Blake’s room flies open and light floods the dark-engulfed place. Blake finally snaps out of her post-dream trance and the energy dissolves into thin air. He falls face first but is able to absorb the impact by putting his arms in front of him before he touches the floor. Bucky gasps thirstily for air, breathing as much of it as he can. He looks up, in the direction of the door and finds a preoccupied and astonished Steve standing in the opening, his mouth hanging half open. Steve stares intently at him, searching for serious damage. Bucky shakes his head in reassurance and looks over to where Blake is sitting, curled up against the headboard. She’s crying. He’s uncertain whether her tears are a reaction to her dream or to what she just did. He can’t bring himself to care that she almost killed him, not really much at least. Upon seeing the tears streaming down her cheeks the only thought that fleetingly crosses his mind is one that pictures him walking closer to her and leaning into her face so he can dry away her tears by caressing her flushed cheeks with his thumb.

   Bucky is amazed at his own train of thought but decides to ponder about it later. He gets up, feeling a little dizzy from the lack of oxygen and staggers over to where Steve’s standing motionless. None of them say anything, choosing to leave the conversation that should follow for tomorrow’s morning. Steve puts a hand on Bucky’s left shoulder and helps him walk out of the room. Before he closes the door they can hear a quiet and broken “sorry”. Buck feels his heart ache at that like the whole ordeal was his fault instead of hers. When Steve asks him if he’s okay he can only nod while he looks to a faraway place. They depart like that, both going back to their rooms hoping for quietness filling the rest of the night. And so it does since neither of them can bring themselves to fall asleep again.

 

* * *

 

   The next morning is as awkward as one would expect after last night’s events. Bucky’s afraid of being near Blake, and she’s so embarrassed and guilt-ridden that she can’t even look at him. Everyone that walks into the lounge feels the floating tension instantly and either steps away or goes about their business quickly. From time to time they accidentally exchange glances from their respective places across the room, Blake on the table and Bucky on the counter. What they see in each other’s eyes is enough to make them look away as fast as their stares met in the first place.

   “Why did you keep the red star?” The question sounds louder than she intended to, with only silence as the opposing force. Bucky’s face snaps back to look over his right shoulder as if to confirm that she actually spoke to him. She hadn’t uttered a word to Bucky since yesterday’s afternoon. He doesn’t count the apology from last night; he isn’t even sure if it was directed at him instead of Steve.

   Blake looks at him with uncertainty in her eyes, probably not expecting an answer. He considers this and decides that telling her the truth won’t hurt. If she is asking that question is because she already knows his history, past, and present. “To remind myself of the horrors that I lived and the fact that I’m not going to go through them ever again.” He tells her quietly, almost like whispering a long-guarded secret. “At first I thought about not having to look at it and that it would be a relief, but then the possibility of losing my memories of that time scared me enough into wanting to have it painted as a reminder.” He finishes, hoping that what he just confessed makes some sense to her. Most importantly, that she _sees_ that he’s not the same man that shot her that first time.

   Bucky finally dares to look back only to find Blake smiling shyly for a second before getting up and leaving. He feels dismayed at this; he would’ve liked to talk to her more. Still, Bucky knows better than to push his luck. So, he gets up and washes his plate and mug to get rid of some of his disappointment. Usually, he lets Steve do it, but he’s not around and Bucky feels grateful for the petty distraction.

   The young (old) soldier decides to entertain himself by training for the rest of the day. He lifts weights and works with different machines in the gym. He spars with Natasha and Steve. He practices shooting with Sam (since Clint lives with his family and isn’t around most of the time). Last of all he goes to one of the labs to get his metal arm calibrated correctly. Bucky didn’t notice last night but somehow Blake powers messed with the internal working of his bionic limb. When he goes back to his room to shower, he passes in front of Blake’s own which has the door open. He sneaks a peek inside with a side glance and sees her sitting on her bed reading a book. As he focuses on the expression on her face she looks up from the pages and stares at him. He schools his face and steers his eyes towards his own door, opening it and closing it behind him. Bucky takes a moment to lean on his closed door and recall her expression of utter peace while reading. He quickly chases the thought away and decides to take a cold shower instead of the hot one he was looking forward to. He bitterly asks himself what is wrong with him as of lately. Unfortunately, he can’t find an answer to his own question.

   Blake’s second day at the compound has passed without any hassles. Dinner was the same as yesterday, but the tension between Bucky and her is slowly dissipating. She only hopes that when her nightmares return tonight he’ll reconsider trying to wake her up and refrain from doing so. She doesn’t want to repeat last night’s altercation. She can’t be sure that tonight Steve will arrive in time to save Bucky from certain death.

   It isn’t the gentle shake of her shoulder that wakes her up, but instead the rustling of sheets on the other side of the wall; _Bucky’s_ bed sheets. Blake lays awake on her bed, listening to Buck’s sounds of displeasure. He’s probably having a nightmare. _Was he having one when he woke up to help me?_ This question troubles her. The fact that she woke him up, and despite the obvious fear that he feels towards her he still got up from his bed and came to her room, wanting to free her from the dream that holds her hostage every night.

   Blake wants to return the gesture, but she’s _terrified_. He might wake up scared and lash out at her. After yesterday she doesn’t think that he’ll be happy to see her hovering over his sleeping form. Bucky might believe that she’s trying to kill him in his sleep or something like that. Blake pushes her negative thoughts aside and goes to Bucky’s room. She doesn’t even bother to knock on the door; she knows that’s not going to work.

   Bucky’s hunched form is drenched in sweat. He’s hugging his left arm tightly against his chest, like if he was cradling a newborn baby. He must be afraid of losing it again. She inches closer, still unsure of what to do. She can try shaking him like he did to her but has the inkling feeling that touching his left -metal- shoulder isn’t the best idea. _What the hell? It’s not like I can’t subdue him if he attacks me_. As soon as she places her right hand over him she realizes with growing panic that what she just thought is wrong.

   Bucky’s metal arm darts towards her neck in a second, seizing it with a vice-like grip. Roles reverse and now she’s the one being pinned to a wall. She claws at his hand uselessly, feeling her air conduct being shut down by the pressure inflicted upon her neck. Blake stares into Bucky’s dead and cold eyes, searching for the man that he was not long ago and only seeing the shadow of a past self that controls him now. She has been warned about Bucky’s mental instability but she didn’t imagine that it would be like this. Her arms and legs are free, so she could try to push him away -even when knowing that he won’t budge. She could also make a good use of her powers, but the lack of sufficient oxygen makes it harder for her to focus the energy necessary to push him off. If she does it carelessly she might hurt him or kill him. She opts instead to just use the rest of the air that’s still inside her lungs to try to speak. “B-Bucky…”

   There’s a shift in the soldier’s eyes, they _soften_. He looks at her, he really does, and he recognizes her. Bucky drops Blake and she falls to the floor in front of his feet. He tries to help her up but she flinches away from his hands. He gets the message and backs away as much as he can. He screwed up big time. She gets up on her own, supported by shaky legs. Blake looks at him a single time before running back towards her bedroom. He saw fear in those eyes, but also understanding. Maybe not everything is lost for the two of them. Maybe she can become part of the team and befriend everyone, even Bucky.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some problems dissolve, some others arise.


	5. The tests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The place that always terrifies me the most isn’t the training ground or the superior’s office. Is that bright and aseptic place they call laboratory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get better, only to get worse.

 

Monday, 10:00 a.m. Avengers Facility, Upstate, NY.

 

   “So much for politely asking her to try to not kill anyone,” Tony says with sarcasm dripping from his voice. It’s been a week since Blake came to the compound and the nightmares haven’t stopped although the incidents did. After the first two nights, neither Blake nor Bucky have gone into each other’s room to wake the other from their night terrors. Even if it’s not the most pleasant strategy, it is the safest. Still, being honest, the two of them find a slight disappointment in waking up alone. Truth be told, they scare the crap out of one another, but they found a reassurance when seeing that the other only meant to help instead of hurt them.

   But the nightmares and Bucky are not the things nagging at Blake’s mind the most, the tests are. Steve had said back on the first day that the examinations of her mind, body, and powers would take place a week from then, and that time has finally come. Tony and Steve are both aware of this potential problem, and even when Stark constantly appears to be concerned with nothing and nobody, he’s trying his best to ensure everyone’s safety; the doctors’ and Blake’s. She is unpredictable and unstable, basically a living safety hazard ready to blow them up at any second. She’s trying really hard to _not_ do that, but a mere week doesn’t win the trust of the Avengers. Especially when they still don’t know what her powers are and from where they come. All they know is that she’s dangerous.

   “Tony; right now is not the moment for this kind of comments. Blake needs all of our support and confidence, primarily because she lacks the latter. And if anything goes wrong we need to be ready to step in immediately. Gather the team, except for Bucky. We don’t want to make her any more nervous.” Steve starts to stroll off while Tony tells Friday to brief the team about Blake’s tests. She has been counseled a couple of times over the last week, talking to psychiatrists and psychologists; so far so good. But is one thing to talk to a doctor in the lounge area while Steve’s around, and another completely different is to have more than one doctor prod her body and mind with several machines in a lab. Everything could go wrong.

   “Okay, Capsicle, pray to your non-Asgardian god for Blake to not freak out and kill us all.” Tony walks away with one last snide comment. Steve prays; not for Blake to not flip out, but for Tony to not piss her off.  It’s going to be a rough week for everybody.

   Steve knocks softly on Blake’s door and opens it, revealing the teenager sitting on her bed and reading Captain America’s comic books. The super soldier feels himself blush at this and comforting warmth spreads over his chest. It’s good to see her trying to adapt and integrate herself. Although it could also be that she’s just investigating Bucky’s past if the various history books lying on top of her desk are anything to go by. Maybe she wants to get to know him in her own way. Probably the only way she knows how, since she lacks any sort of social skills. Too bad there isn’t anything that Buck can read to know about her too. If they’re lucky enough, after reading a good amount she’ll be convinced that it’s safe to talk directly to him and that way they could begin to form a friendship. But only if luck it’s on their side.

   “Hey Blake, are you ready to go?” She looks up from the colored pages and locks her eyes with Steve’s. A nervous smile tugs at her lips as she stands up and walks to the door. Steve steps away from the entrance to Blake’s room and follows her down to the labs. They don’t exchange any words on their way there; instead, they just let the tension coming off of Blake fill their surrounding silence. Steve desperately wants to say something that’ll reassure her that everything is going to be alright, but by the time that he manages to come up with the right words it’s already too late and they find themselves in front of the lab doors.

   As Blake is about to step inside, Steve stops her by putting his left hand on one of her shoulders. The girl jumps a little, surprised by the sudden touch. She looks up into Steve’s clear blue eyes and sees the concern there. On the other hand, Steve sees the fear that is quickly dismissed and pushed aside. There’s a long history of cruel experimentation and abuse behind that slight tension that resides in her body every time someone touches her. If they’re not careful enough this might result in the detonation that could blow the building up during the middle of the tests. Steve is already mentally planning to tell the doctors about this as he walks into the lab after Blake. But then again this is something that her therapists must have noticed before and already forewarned the people who’ll handle the teen through the different procedures.

   The first lab looks like more of an infirmary than a full laboratory. There are counters with faucets and sinks and different kinds of recipients and microscopes. Blake is instructed to remove her shirt and sit on the table in the middle of the room. She appears hesitant at first but finally complies. Flashbacks of what would happen if she refuses run through her mind. The doctors begin with the simplest task: taking samples of blood, saliva, and hair; listening to her breathing and her heart rate; watching the response of her eyes. These little examinations went on for half an hour, with the young woman slowly becoming more and more comfortable with her surroundings and the people prodding her body gently in order to get everything they need.

   Once the doctors are done they dismiss both of the enhanced humans, directing them towards the next lab, where they will begin the tests that require more complex machines, such as head resonances and X-rays (it still beats Steve why they have such things in the compound, but that’s Tony Stark for you). Blake feels antsy about being inside some of the machines, but eventually, settles and by the time they’re done another two hours have passed. Now there’s only one lab left to go to, and on their way there they crossed Tony, who asked seemingly uninterested how everything’s going.

   The last few tests of the day are about her powers and after these ones are done Blake will have to attend a session with her therapist in order to see how much the examinations affected her. The couple arrives at the third lab -which is a proper one- and Blake’s asked for the third (and hopefully for her the last) time to take off her shirt since the scientists want to have a clear view of the energy emerging from her body. They ask her to do all kinds of things, some she manages to carry out and others she’s unable to do. The doctors take notes of everything and even record on video some of the most prominent tasks she manages to achieve. She ends up exhausted, wanting nothing more than going back to her room and collapse onto her bed.

   “The hardest part is over, now you just have to go talk to the psychiatrist and then we can have lunch. Okay?” The teenager nods curtly and goes to the now familiar office where she attends therapy. She glances back with worry marring her expression and Steve sends her a look of reassurance; he’ll be outside of the room waiting for her, not wanting to leave her alone. It’s not until she’s already seated inside that Sam pops his head around the corner calling for the WWII veteran’s attention. Steve glances back into the office and hesitates, but ultimately goes to see what the younger man needs. He does not only find Sam but also Bucky, who’s standing behind the former male. “What’s going on?” He asks sensing something off.

   “We have a mission, a terrorist attack down in New York. Hill’s sending everyone minus Buck and the kiddo.” Sam says in a serious tone, not wanting more than anyone else to leave the two damaged individuals without proper supervision. Steve looks at Bucky, who looks worried sick about the idea of having to watch over the teen knowing how volatile she’s around him. There’s a silent plea in his eyes that says he wants to go with them instead of staying with someone as unbalanced as he used to be. Although he still has nightmares, his violent response to any kind of disruption during his sleep is more of a defense mechanism –the consequence of PTSD and what not- than Hydra’s programming (which was completely removed from his mind).

   “Okay then, I’ll suit up. Buck, I need you to stay with Blake. Not too close or too far, but don’t let her get away from your sight. Can you do that for me?” Bucky appears ready to object and bolt out for the Quinjet, but his oldest friend’s request weights his honorable side down. He nods sharply once and moves in the direction of the therapist’s office while the other two men go on their way to gear up. Buck curses mentally at the situation he’s trapped in, fearing that the wrong word or movement could set her off.

   At first, he doesn’t intend to but finds himself enraptured by the youngster’s voice and the words forming the forced monotone voice’s statements. Blake’s talking about him, and not in a nice way. The therapists have gone back to their primary subject of their sessions with her: Blake’s past. They’re asking her about the night of the incident; when he was sent to kill her. He did so, or at least thought that he succeeded at the moment. When he found out that she survived he was relieved, but at the same time horrified because he knew how dangerous she’s and how much she hates his guts. Bucky isn’t reassuring himself that everything will be okay at all. He’s only managing to scare himself even more.

   “I remember running through the dark halls. It was obscured due to the lack of light; the main power had been shot off. I could hear loud banging and explosions; screams coming from every corner of the facility. I-it was terrifying. It’s surprising that I didn’t freeze instantly and waited for someone to come pick me up.” She says in the steadiest voice she can manage, which at this point is quite difficult considering her vivid revival of the events. “But it’s to this day that I’m unsure if it wouldn’t have been better if I stayed put where I was. Maybe that way, things could’ve played out differently, and I wouldn’t be here. Then again someone could’ve come for me and I would be in their hands right now. So I don’t know what outcome would’ve been the best. Maybe…maybe if he really had killed me…”

   Bucky feels a sharp pain stabbing him in the chest, but when he looks down he sees no physical threat to which he could attribute the searing pain. _What is wrong with me?_ Bucky thinks, trying to cope with the feelings that threaten to overwhelm him. Guilt, it’s the only reasonable explanation for what he feels right now. What he did was so horrible that Blake wishes to have died instead of being alive. She hates him, he knows that. Buck tries to leave aside his self-deprecating thoughts and keep listening to the ongoing conversation inside the office. He shouldn’t, he knows; but he can’t help himself.

   “Tell us about him. What he looked like; what you felt towards him in those moments.” The female therapist says; her voice calm and level. Bucky already has an idea of what Blake might say, but he’s not prepared nevertheless. The words that he repeats to himself over and over again; the ones that everyone else has refused to use in front of him. Blake’s unaware of his presence in the corridor, so she can speak without holding back. He knows, but the words spat out of her mouth still pierce him even through the metal of his arm.

   “He was covered in all-black clothes from head to toe. He had shaggy dark brown hair that covered his ice cold blue eyes. Half of his face was hidden underneath a black mask. And he had a metal arm with a red star on the shoulder.” Blake says with growing anger laced in her quivering voice. She hates him, the shadow. Not Bucky; the Winter Soldier. They’re separate beings, she knows that. “The shadow moved quickly, silently; there was a deadly intent flowing with his movements. He was a trained assassin; a professional at it. I had no chance against him, we both knew it. My powers were out of the question, I was too afraid to use them without thought. I escaped him once by pure chance; a mere distraction. The saddest thing about it all is that I genuinely thought that I’d made it. But I didn’t. He managed to find me again and kill me, after murdering everyone that worked there. I never knew if their mission was elimination only or if they took something with them. I’m scared to think that they were supposed to take me. Maybe they did, and in the only moment of clarity that he had, he decided that it would be better for me to just die.” The memories and the implication of the acts occurred in them stir confusion and doubt within her. She doesn’t know what’s true or false anymore.

   “What do you think about him, the shadow, after all that happened that night?” The question can only incite one answer, and Bucky doesn’t want to hear it. But he does, because he knows that he needs it; from someone, anyone. The truth about his nature, the one he came to adopt after all of his years with Hydra. It doesn’t matter if he’s using it for good now. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s still there, strong as ever; ready to take over him whenever a drop overflows the water in the glass that represents his patience and self-control.

   “He’s a monster,” she spits out like venom. It hurts; it hurts Bucky so much. And it twists something inside him. Something warm and beautiful that started growing a few days back. It turns black and bitter. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth. It makes his hands unconsciously ball into tight fists. He needed to hear this, but it still hurts like hell to hear it from the one person that can understand him better than anybody else. It hurts even worse because he doesn’t know the distinction Blake does between Bucky and his former brainwashed self. She doesn’t voice that thought, so he thinks that she’s calling _him_ a monster, not solely the Winter Soldier.

   The young woman keeps talking, but the older male is unable to pay attention to whatever she’s saying. It’s too much to take in, to finally hear from her very lips what she thinks of him. Buck’s view becomes blurry as water starts surging from his tear ducts. He won’t allow himself to cry; not over this, the truth. He swallows whatever sadness he feels and compresses it into a ball of anger. That’s the only way he knows how to deal with this kind of emotion. The way they taught him to use so he wouldn’t become distracted and keep his focus on his missions. Anger is the only emotion he has felt for decades. It’s familiar; it’s safe. Nothing can harm him this way.

   The door opens suddenly, the teenager coming through it not wanting to spend another second inside the office remembering her dark and sorrowful past. Blake meets the Sergeant’s hard stare the moment she comes face to face with him. The look he gives her scares the youngling because she doesn’t understand what she did to gain it. Then she recalls what Steve told her about his post-serum abilities and the fact that he has enhanced hearing like her. Bucky went through a process quite similar to Steve’s, even with better results; which means that he possibly heard everything that she just said. Blake should apologize and try to explain to Bucky what she meant but the former Hydra asset just walks past her and leaves the stunned girl behind.

   Buck has all the reasons to be mad at her after listening -even when he did it uninvited- to what she told her therapist about him, but he should demand an explanation instead of just walking away. Now she feels offended herself (if it makes any sense), and whatever compassion and sort of affection she felt for him have gone down the drain. One of the bigger problems of human experimentation is the corruption of the mind into an unstable mental state. Basically, their ability to control their emotions gets fucked up. This explains why both superhumans became angry at each other all of the sudden. They have reasons, each one; but instead of talking it out they decide to start hating the other…all over again.

 

* * *

 

   Steve asked Bucky to not let Blake out of his sight, and he ended up doing exactly that. He knows his oldest friend is going to scold the shit out of him and that letting a weaponized trauma-scarred teenage girl wander around without supervision is as bad of an idea as giving himself back to Hydra, but at this very moment, he can’t care less. Buck’s at the gym, yet again using the now worn-out punching bag as a means for blowing some steam. He has already thrown it against the wall three times, his anger taking a toll on him and making him punch with more force than he intends to. _Maybe I should move on to weights_ , he thinks grimly to himself. Bucky knows that there’s nothing soothing enough to calm his rage. At this point, not even an apology.

   When the long-haired man glances at the clock -conveniently placed on the wall, above the entry- he finds out that he’s been aggressively exercising for six hours straight, too caught up in his own messy train of thought to even notice the exhaustion seeping in slowly over his entire body. He drained his energy without realizing it. Thankfully he had a big lunch to compensate, and he’ll sure as hell have a really big dinner. Bucky sighs, tired beyond measure; both physically and mentally. He needs to find out Blake’s current whereabouts before the guys arrive from their mission. That way he might placate Steve’s anger just the tiniest bit.

   The problem is: Blake’s nowhere to be found. She’s not in her room, the lounge or any training grounds. Bucky has been searching the entire compound for the last hour and he’s getting more anxious by the passing second. _She couldn’t have escaped…could she?_ He wonders with growing horror. What if she did? The team would surely kill him for even allowing -if unintentionally at that- a human-transformed-into-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction to wander away completely alone. _Doesn’t she have a tracker or something?_ Buck heads directly towards Tony’s lab, determined to find her via the GPS chip she’s probably carrying with herself. If she escaped then she surely removed it; if she didn’t…it means that she’s still around.

   Luckily the lab is deserted, so Bucky doesn’t have to explain to anyone what he’s doing there. He opens Tony’s computer and logs in easily -because of course the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist has an over-the-top obvious password- going straight for the GPS locator and opening it with the hope to find Blake’s signal somewhere around the premises. Everyone else’s indicates that they’re still out, but Blake’s…Blake’s signals that she isn’t even a kilometer away from the facilities. She’s somewhere in the woods, but close enough that he could run to her and be there in less than five minutes. A voice in the back of his head reminds him that it could be only the tracker instead of Blake, so he still should go to make sure that it _is_ her. And also to bring her back, she shouldn’t be out there this late at night; even less on this chilly winter night.

   It’s when Bucky is exiting the lab that he almost collides with Tony. He was hoping to not be caught red-handed so he could tell them what happened in a sort of distorted way (leaving out some important details like the fact that he disregarded Steve’s request in order to let his childish behavior take over him) and just say that she was stressed out and wanted some privacy. Now he’ll have to spit out the whole truth, especially since Tony’s the one who he crossed paths with. He still hates him, everybody knows; if he has the chance to put him in the spotlight of judgment, he’ll do it with gusto.

   “What are you doing here, Barnes?” Tony narrows his eyes in suspicion, already smelling something foul behind Bucky’s shenanigans. The younger (older) male opens his mouth to say something but shuts it when he sees Steve coming behind Tony with a worried expression plastered on his face. It’s right at this moment when Buck knows there’s no going back. They probably already found out that Blake’s not there.

   “Buck, where’s Blake?” Stark glances back at the Cap and then at Bucky, his face contorting with mild fury and irritation. Even so, the ex-assassin notices a glint of joy dancing in the engineer’s eyes. Tony finally has something to pin on Hydra’s former pet; something to use to berate him and put him down every time he speaks. _Oh sorry, what were you saying? I got distracted thinking about that time that you let a weapon of mass destruction -and a very volatile one at that- out of your sight._ He’ll enjoy Buck’s guilt and rage for sure.

   “Well…” Bucky ends telling them everything. From what he heard Blake confess to her therapist to the encounter they had afterward. Tony’s pissed off and Steve’s just disappointed; he can’t believe that after everything that he went through his best friend would let someone words -even as cruel as hers were- get to him to the point of disregarding orders. It doesn’t matter if it was worded as a request, they both know it was a direct order to not let Blake out of his sight for even a second, let alone let her out of the building. The two superheroes exchange unspoken words through their eyes and Steve says that he’ll go look for her. “No. I’ll do it…I _have_ to. You should go grab some dinner; you’ve been out all day.” Steve’s glare softens and he’s about to refute Buck’s proposal, insisting that it’s fine and that he doesn’t need to force himself to do it; but he sees the resolution in his older friend’s eyes. “I’m not hungry anyway.” He says before turning and when he does, the loud growl his stomach produces betrays his words, but he keeps walking nevertheless in the direction of Blake’s whereabouts.

   The night is quite cold, as he had predicted before. Bucky shivers a bit, cursing mentally at himself for not grabbing a jacket to put on and instead just walking out wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. He just hopes that Blake’s still in the same spot as he saw on the computer; he doesn’t want to walk any more than what he has to. He knows that he screwed up, but he’s not the emotionless bastard he used to be under Hydra’s control. Bucky has his feelings back, and after all that time feeling nothing but anger and pain he can’t push aside every mean comment he gets thrown his way. Especially not when they refer to his past and they come from people that he cares about. Buck cared about Blake, he saw her as just another broken person who suffered under the subjugation of the worst kind of human beings. He didn’t feel pity, only compassion and sympathy. He wanted to make it better, but now he thinks that she may be just a crooked girl with a bitchy personality. She wasn’t under mind control -as far as he knows-, so she’s probably cruel and sadistic. Maybe everything that they saw is just some made up act that she decided to show them in order to be spared from death or incarceration.

   Bucky feels himself growing angrier with every step that he takes towards the lake Blake’s supposed to be around. His thoughts are going into darker territories by the second, bordering on the surge of a dangerous reaction to whatever she might say or do upon seeing him approach. Everything could go wrong if he’s not careful enough. If she sees his anger then she might run off; and if it comes down to a chase, things might escalate into colossal disaster. Bucky doesn’t know what Blake’s capable of when confronted with death -or at least what she would assume to be death.

   When Bucky arrives at the shore of the lake he finds himself in front of a beautiful sight. The water surface is completely frozen, shining white under the pale moonlight. In the middle of it -skating with a grace he hasn’t seen even in Russia’s most talented ice skaters- he sees Blake. She’s dancing like no one’s watching (and she probably thinks that’s the case); going around in circles with the skill of someone who was born with ice skates instead of feet. He didn’t know she had this talent, she never told anyone apparently. It seems she wanted to keep it a secret. _But why would she hide it if it meant not being able to skate?_ It doesn’t make sense to him. Maybe she just didn’t want them to know; which is unfortunate, since she’s a sight to behold. With her petite body clad in all-black clothes and sporting some odd-looking knee high (black) ice skating boots, she’s easy to spot.

   The WWII veteran loses track of time, too enraptured by the dancing teen to even notice that fifteen minutes passed since he arrived at the lake’s shore. He even forgot for a second there that he’s mad at her and why. But only for a brief moment; he regains his bearings quickly, masking his expression of amazement with a stern blank face. Still, he has to think of a way to call the youngster’s attention. Apparently, he doesn’t need to; Blake stops skating all on her own and looks straight to where Bucky’s standing. They exchange glances and the girl starts to slowly skate back to the shore in his direction, understanding that is time to go back.

   The reason why she came out to skate is that Blake finds it quite relaxing and freeing. She felt like she needed it after today's various occurrences. Truth be told, she did manage to cool off and dissipate most of her anger towards Bucky and she's been hoping that he did the same. Unfortunately for her, she sees that that's not the case after noticing that he's still wearing the same expression she saw when she exited the therapist's office; so much for trying to calm down and be civil again.

   When Blake steps into the snow-covered grass she unties her boots laces and changes into her shoes as fast as she can, not wanting to stand in the freezing snow any more than she has to. Bucky thinks briefly about helping her so she doesn’t get frostbite on her bare feet, but the part of him that’s still pissed at her overrides the part that has a soft spot for the teenager. She doesn’t say anything, though, sensing the waves of anger and warmth coming off of him. He’s like a furnace in the middle of the cold and dark forest; one that she would like to embrace.

   With her feet wet from the snow and the sweat from her recent exercise dampening her clothes Blake’s basically a human coldness-attractor. She’s shivering badly and starting to feel several body parts go numb, making the way back to the compound all the more difficult. She could just ask him, she knows; but she’s still mildly scared of him and the revival of her memories earlier today is making things worse. The fact that he doesn’t even bother to appear friendly or at least non-threatening is a major discouragement. Blake might freeze to death before she gets back, and she’s the impression that Bucky wouldn’t care that much if that actually happened. _What’s his goddamn problem?_ Despite _knowing_ what his problem _is_ , she can’t help feeling appalled by the soldier’s strange demeanor. If the girl just explained what she meant and how she meant it the problem would be solved; but she feels that she shouldn’t have to, he should be able to figure it out all by himself. _Isn’t it obvious that that’s how I_ used _to feel about him and not how I feel_ now _? If I still felt the same way things would be so much different than they are; mainly because I would’ve killed him already_.

   Deep down Blake knows that she couldn’t kill Bucky even if she really wanted to. It’s against her morals, her ex-handlers attempt of brainwashing be damned. She would bring him to justice if he was still under Hydra’s control. But that’s not how things played out. Buck is trying his hardest to find himself, having partially departed from both of his previous selves. He knows that they can’t be erased from his mind, but he can cast them aside to be…his new self. Not James Buchanan Barnes or the Winter Soldier, just Bucky. Not Captain America’s sidekick or enemy, just Steve’s best bud. Buck can’t go back to being his former laidback self since he’s conscious about the horrors that he committed, but at the same time, he won’t allow himself to reverse back to that blood-thirsty monster. No matter how many people still see him like that, he’ll move on and prove to everybody that he _has_ changed.

   Being mad at Blake for what she said wasn’t in Buck’s plan to “prove everyone wrong”, but he can’t honestly help it. It still hurts, and he thinks that it’ll continue to hurt for a while. To be seen as a monster now that he’s not one anymore by someone who can understand what he went through isn’t something he can take lightly. _But then again who knows monsters better than one?_ Maybe she never got to be sent on a mission. Maybe she wasn’t ready to do so yet. Maybe Destiny’s cruelty spared her. He’ll be grateful for that if that’s the case. Bucky wishes he could have been spared himself. It wasn’t the case and now he has to deal with the consequences; including an emotionally deficient teen who he thought he was falling for.

 _Wait, WHAT?!_ Bucky stops abruptly a few steps away from the compound’s entrance, suddenly taken aback by his own thoughts. _That’s stupid, she’s just a kid. Get it together, Barnes._ The use of his surname jolts him back to reality, his old self slipping through the cracks of his mind to make a brief appearance. He notices rather late that Blake stopped too, and that she’s looking at him like he’s some kind of odd tree. Bucky regains his composure and saunters inside the building, not even bothering to hold the door open for the young female. _She’s more than capable to do it herself. I’m going straight to bed_. He leaves her behind with that thought and heads over to his bedroom, wanting nothing more than to sleep his irritation away.

   Now, if Blake was pissed before, she’s downright furious after that last display of assholeness from the older male. _He’s mad? Well, I’ll show him mad. If that even makes sense…_ She struggles to comprehend her own swirl of emotions but fails royally. She finally settles for tiredness and decides to skip dinner even if that means waking up with a stomachache. The teen has had enough for today. _I deserve some rest_. She crosses Steve in a hallway, who gives her still-shaking-form a concerned look but she just shrugs it off by waving him goodnight.

   Once in the comforting warmth of her bed -and after a hot shower- she feels the sadness and disappointment down on her. Blake was really hoping to get along with Bucky, especially after finally understanding that he’s not the same man he used to be when they first met. But it took just one misunderstanding to place them right back at square one when they feared and hated each other. Even if now is only the hate who is present it only makes it worse, ‘cause there’s no real reason behind it this time. There’s no true meaning to their mutual disliking anymore. Maybe it’s something else just masking itself. She can’t know, she never understood human emotion after all. All Blake can do is hope that things will sort themselves out in a peaceful way and that the two of them will become friends again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let The Hate Games begin! #DramaQueens


	6. The party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -“Hey! So, I ran into Fury this morning and he told me that our petition to integrate Blake into the team has been accepted. We should celebrate!”
> 
> -“I’ve got the feeling that this idea won’t end well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happens when you put two highly unstable enhanced humans in a utility closet?  
> Well...awkwardness ensues.

Friday, 06:12 p.m. Avengers Facility, Upstate, NY.

 

   After the week of intense testing that Blake endured, it has been granted by Fury’s and Hill’s unanimous decision that the teenager is to become part of the Avenger’s team. Although the news are just right out of the oven, the young woman hasn’t been informed yet -as per Stark’s request, who appears to be scheming something behind closed doors and away from everyone’s prying eyes. It isn’t something surprising, Tony’s shenanigans; but they always come accompanied with ill-intended acts and jokes that only serve to amuse him alone. This is what concerns Steve deeply, especially when taking into account that the center of attention will be Blake (and possibly Bucky too, since Tony finds hilarious the friction between the two of them).

   “Come on, Capsicle, what could possibly go wrong about a little party? It’ll be great! The kid deserves a break after all the things she went through last week. Damn, she deserves it after everything that happened in her entire life.” Tony says in an attempt to convince Steve to give in to the idea. Steve frowns deeply but doesn’t object to the impending celebration. He has the nagging feeling that something bad is going to happen, and no matter how much Stark tries to dissipate his fears he can’t shake off the feeling. Worries aside, it might do some good to have a moment to relax and hang out.

   “Fine, but if Blake ends up destroying everything it’ll be your fault.” The younger (older) male points out as a way to discourage Tony about whatever he has planned for said event. Of course, Steve knows that it won’t really work with Tony -as nothing apparently does- but can’t bring himself to abandon all hope that by just asking he’ll step down. Poor Captain America, he never learns.

   “Sure thing, Rogers. I already took care of everything, so we just have to tell everyone.” This leaves Steve speechless, having expected the party to take place at least tomorrow night and not right now. He’s about to shut it down, but when he follows Tony down to the lounge he sees that everything is in fact set up and ready. There are some balloons here and there; food served on the dinner table and soft music playing in the background (which will presumably change into EDM the second Tony decides that it’s “dancing time”). “So, you go get your two best friends ‘Lenny and Carl’, and the kid that will probably kill us all tonight; and I’ll get the rest, deal?”

   The Captain is about to tell Tony off about his joke but decides against it and starts walking towards the training grounds. Stark yells something at him, but Steve couldn’t care less, feeling exhausted after everything this week and the tiring prospect of tonight’s activities courtesy of Howard’s son. Last time he checked, Sam and Bucky were training together while Blake watches them with mild interest. He’s hoping to find the three of them still in the same room, which nowadays seems unlikely after Buck’s and Blake’s fight. At the time he felt like punching Bucky in order to straighten his mind in the right direction, but he now understands that his friend’s more hurt than angry. It’s obvious to anyone with eyes and a working mind that the former Hydra asset is “slightly” (which means deeply) in love with the teen. Steve thinks that he probably figured that out already but can’t bring himself to admit it. On the other hand -knowing Blake’s apparent inability to understand human emotion- the girl still might be oblivious to Buck’s feelings. Even if she feels remotely the same it could be possible that she doesn’t know it yet, not being able to comprehend what’s going on with her emotions.

   Sure enough, the trio’s at the gym; with the two males silently disputing who can lift more -which is quite stupid considering Bucky’s obvious super strength provided by the serum _and_ his bionic arm- and the girl seated in the farthest corner, doing her best to avoid the Sergeant at all costs. It would look funny if the two individuals mad at each other weren’t unstable weaponized people. They all look up as soon as Steve steps inside, and thus making him feel like the center of attention -and misdirected attention at that, like if _two_ of them wanted to look somewhere else instead. By somewhere else I mean each other.

   “I don’t really know how to say this…I think that the most direct way is the easiest. So, Tony’s throwing a party tonight to celebrate Blake’s integration to the team.” He says it so fast and light that for a second no one can grasp the meaning of his sentence, looking confused at him and waiting for an explanation. Steve curses himself, not really wanting to repeat what he just said but fortunately for him, it seems that he got the message across. Blake looks completely baffled, either by her admission to the team or the fact that they’re celebrating it. Sam appears to be happy to have a night that doesn’t include late hours doing missions or uncomfortable dinners among the whole team. And Bucky is…unwilling would be an understatement.

   “Well, sounds like fun,” Sam says, trying to break the tension filling the room, already sensing Bucky’s uneasiness. Steve only manages to nod in what he hopes to be a reassuring way but has the feeling that he failed significantly at it. Blake simply gets up and starts walking to the door, glad to have a reason to put distance between Bucky and her. “Let’s call it a night and see what Stark has prepared for us,” Falcon announces to get the ex Winter Soldier moving towards the lounge area. None of them want to put up with Tony’s crap but if everyone is there they might just throw him out if it becomes too much and continue the celebration by themselves in a more tranquil way.

   When the group of four -consisting of three enhanced humans and a man who owns a “bird costume”- arrives at the common area they’re met with the rest of the Avengers living in the compound, plus Rhodes and Scott Lang. They all yell “surprise” upon Steve’s small group appearance, which is wasted ‘cause the teenager already knows about the party. “Well, thanks to the star-spangled man the surprise was ruined, but the party’s still going strong!” It’s evident that there’s a considerable amount of alcohol in Tony’s words just by the enthusiasm he puts in his sarcasm. Now it’s pretty clear that the party sucks and will continue to suck until everybody goes to bed.

   “Are you drunk already? I haven’t been away for ten minutes even.” Steve’s incredulous tone doesn’t deter Tony from being tipsily happy about nothing in particular. He doesn’t care if everything goes to shit; he just wants to have some fun. And if the villainous smile he’s sporting is anything to go by…things will get heated up between the unlikely pair of unaware lovers; _that’s_ Tony’s goal. Of course, everyone paying attention can pick up his sinister intentions; except Blake.

   “Just had a couple of ‘tinis; nothing strong. Come now, gather around; let’s get this party started!” Despite Tony’s joyfulness, it doesn’t transmit to the rest of the team. “And of course, the reason why we’re all gathered here tonight, Blakey!” Steve can actually see the exact moment when Blake cringes at the use of that particular nickname. It’s painful, to say the least. Nobody moves for a moment, all eyes trained on the teen. The awkwardness floats in the air, preventing everyone from making any move.

   “Fine, as long as you try to keep yourself in check we’ll take part in this party of yours.” As always, Natasha is the one to break the tension by putting Tony back in his place and reminding him that no one will put up with his bullshit. Clint follows her suit, grabbing a bowl of nachos from the table and walking away to one of the couches and sitting down next to Tasha. Scott grabs a beer and passes another one to Rhodes, both of them standing near the kitchen. Vision -predictably- asks Wanda if she wants to play a game of chess (to which Tony comments “people born in this century don’t know how to have fun”, but Vision doesn’t mind to reply) and takes a sit in front of the board placed on the coffee table.

   Since pairs have been formed -and Tony is being completely ignored- Blake goes to sit in a corner expecting to be left alone (even when the party is in her honor). Sam and Bucky stand by the table, eating and talking amiably -keeping their voices down so Blake can’t hear them. Meanwhile, Steve is trying his best to talk some sense into Tony’s inebriated mind (which is proving to be futile). If you imagined the Avengers parties to be grand and outstand-ish, then you are wrong. Maybe they were, once upon a time. But not anymore; especially not when the tension in the room can be cut with a knife.

   Bucky glances towards where Blake’s standing all alone only to notice that she’s not there anymore, but sitting in front of Clint and Natasha; listening intently to what the two are talking. He thinks for a flitting second that he feels a pang of jealousy but brushes it off rather quickly. Buck has to remind himself once again that he’s still upset about what Blake said a few days back. Incredibly so, he keeps forgetting about it. Absentmindedly he wonders if she’s still pissed off too. He figured out that she got mad at him simply because he got angry first. So, according to Bucky, she’s the one at fault here. On the other hand, Blake thinks that he’s the one who really fucked up by misunderstanding her. Truly mature of both of them, I think.

   “Okay, everyone stop. This party is downright boring, so is time to spice things up. Let’s play charades!” Tony declares triumphantly, throwing up his hands in a manner to catch everyone’s attention. He succeeds at this, but the faces that look his way show nothing more than wary preoccupation. “I bet Blake never played that.” And he’s right, she hasn’t. Surely enough, Blake’s first time playing the game -with the _Avengers_ \- should prove to be quite…entertaining.

 

* * *

 

   The team spent an hour hastily playing charades (up until everybody gave up when they couldn’t understand what Blake was trying to mimic). The teen didn’t get what her teammates -or anyone else- were trying to explain via signals, nor could she do the same when her turn was up. The game came to an abrupt end after Tony played a little prank on Steve, secretly giving him a card with the word “sex” written on it. Despite the Captain’s best intentions (and highly awkward attempts in a demonstration), Blake didn’t get the word -unlike the rest that she didn’t understand, everyone thought that _that_ word was too obvious to misinterpret. This left all of the party attendants half-shocked and half-amused, wondering _how_ _much_ the teen really knows about that whole business. They guessed that a lot less than what they originally thought. After all, she told them that she investigated as much as she could once free from the grasp of the unknown entity that raised her; or at least the same mad scientists must have taught her something about human reproduction.

   “Well, that was a complete fiasco. Let’s play another game, one that’s more fun.” Tony says with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Steve feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand, already sensing something amiss about Stark’s intentions. On the other end of the couches, Natasha suspects what’s about to happen and comments her thoughts with Clint. The archer nods in return and his lips start slowly curling into a knowing smile -one that Blake is oblivious to. “I know this is your first party kiddo,” at this statement, Blake frowns mildly offended but ends up nodding to herself that he’s in fact right; “so we gonna give you the whole experience. So, next is…Seven Minutes in Heaven.” He says while wiggling his eyebrows up and down suggestively, looking between Blake and Bucky.

   “What’s ‘Seven Minutes in Heaven’?” The superhuman teenager asks, confused and apprehensive. Everybody turns to look at her with a blank expression. She looks even more confused than before and a few of the ones staring avert their gaze to somewhere else. Tony’s grin widens in a predatory manner, eager to see his plan unfold perfectly in front of him. Truth be told, he isn’t really drunk; he’s just acting for the sake of not being held accountable for tonight’s shenanigans. _Not_ too _accountable anyway_. He thinks with a smirk plastered on his face.

   “You don’t know?” Stark feigns surprise but mutters a quiet “of course you don’t know” under his breath. “Okay then, let me tell you. It’s a fun little game which involves two people in a closed space.” Tony says, leering at an uncomfortable looking Blake. She doesn’t like the way he’s staring at her, with an intent unknown to her. She has a strange feeling that has taken residence in her gut; one that tells her that things are going to turn out bad for her, but unfortunately she’s unaware of this feeling’s meaning.

   “Doing what?” Blake asks rather defensively, finding irritating the lack of information provided to her. She turns to look at the rest of her teammates, searching for an answer to her inquiry. None is given; only expressions of uneasiness are presented to her. She makes brief eye contact with Bucky, suddenly very conscious about the intensity of his gaze upon her. Still, when he notices her eyes fixed on his, he glances into the darkness outside the window. Blake’s perplexed by whatever emotion she saw in the Sergeant’s eyes, not being able to pinpoint exactly what it was. Bucky’s just thankful that she doesn’t stare for too long.

   “The usual, kissing and stuff,” Stark says nonchalant and gets a frown for a response from the teenager. This makes him reel from happiness alone, the gears in his mind starting to spin with such velocity that it’s making him dizzy. Everything is going according to his plan. Now, all there’s left to do is get Barnes on board -even if he’s unwilling. When he looks back to the teen he sees her face scrunched up in confusion and irritation, starting to get frustrated with the missing explanations.

   “What’s a kiss even?” Blake asks out of curiosity and bewilderment, tired that no one is telling her these things straight up. The stunned looks of the people around her don’t help her understanding what Tony’s talking about; they only manage to make her more uncomfortable. She glances at Bucky -not knowing exactly _why_ \- and notices the piercing look he’s directing back at her. Unconsciously, he licks his dry lips while trying to convey his most sincere expression of disbelief, trying hard to hide his surprise and sudden apprehension towards an unwelcome feeling he’s been unsuccessfully attempting to suppress. Blake can read all of this on his face, but she can’t get the meaning of each conflicting emotion. Thankfully -or actually not- for both of them, they’re distracted by Stark’s mock-astonishment.

   “You don’t know what a kiss is?! Didn’t you learn or been taught anything about sex?” He asks knowing well enough that the only purpose of this question is to put her in the spotlight of a very awkward conversation topic among the team. Everyone is so uncertain about how much she knows about certain things that they usually tiptoe around some matters more than others. One of those subjects being anything related to human interactions/relationships, knowing well that she lacks the required social skills even the more introverted and socially dysfunctional person should have. Upon seeing Blake’s blank face Steve knows immediately that she’s going to say something blunt and crass concerning her knowledge of sexual relationships among humans.

   “Of course I know about intercourse and pregnancy. They taught me a lot in the field of biology. It’s the way humans have to naturally conceive life, and also as a means to find satisfaction through the pleasure that the action itself can create via the stimulation of the nerves terminals located in a certain area of the human genitalia-” Before she can continue her class on “Sex 101”, she’s stopped by everyone present -especially by Steve, who just puts his hands in front of him as if trying to physically protect himself from her highly-explicit-matter-of-fact response. Tony -on the other hand- starts cackling loudly, unable to breathe properly through neither mouth nor nose. Regarding the rest, they’re either amused or feeling uncomfortable. When she turns to look in Bucky’s direction she sees something that scares her in his eyes but at the same time, it makes her stomach fill with a kind of warmth she never felt before. She can’t stand the intensity of his gaze anymore and opts instead for redirecting her eyes towards the still giggling Stark.

   “I’m sorry, but this is hilarious; definitely priceless!” Steve glares at Tony’s flippant behavior and the older (younger) male decides to take pity on the perplexed teenager sitting in front of him. “Kissing is the act of touching another person with your lips, to show them love or affection. Although it’s normally done by placing one’s lips on the other person’s, it can extend to other areas of the body.” Stark finishes with a suggestive grin that passes right through Blake without her catching the intent of that little gesture. At the other end of the couches, Bucky stiffens minutely, focused on keeping certain thoughts at bay.

   “So the game is about kissing someone in a closet?” Blake asks disbelievingly, finding the concept absurd and pointless. _Why would anyone_ want _to do that?_ She can’t seem to find a good enough reason to want to do that or be remotely interested in doing it. After a shrug from Tony and a seemingly uninterested “pretty much”, she considers the pros and cons of playing such a stupid game. As surprising as it is, she can’t find many points either positive or negative about acquiring this experience, but ultimately resolves that there can’t be any harm in doing it -even when feeling appalled by the idea of being in a small closet next to any of her fellow teammates. More so, she doesn’t feel the curiosity to find out what kissing any of them feels like (and she chooses to purposefully ignore how that same idea falters when she considers doing it with a certain ex-assassin). “Okay then.”

   The girl says it so quietly that -at first- nobody’s sure if she spoke at all, but one look at either Steve’s or Buck’s face confirms that she in fact did. “Great! Let’s do it then. Who shall I pick…?” Tony asks enthusiastically, unable to wait for a second longer to get the two of them in the closet. Bucky tenses at this, knowing perfectly well that Stark’s up to something. He’s aware that everyone in the room knows about the tension between Blake and him, and that everybody’s conscious what the whole thing is really about -except for Blake, of course.

   “Why do you get to choose who’s gonna play?” Sam questions with a rather defensive tone, worried that he’ll pair up an unlikely couple. When he’s answered with a cocky “the one, whose idea was, gets to pick”, he starts putting the pieces together and glances nervously to his right where Buck’s sitting looking quite anxious. Steve stares at Tony in open disbelief before fixing his gaze on his two best friends at the other end of the couches. Sam and he share a mutual look of concern, fearing what Tony’s next move is going to be.

   “Since this is Blake’s party and she never played the game I think it’s only fair to let her be the first; especially now that we know you never kissed anyone. Now, who shall fix _that_?” He wiggles his eyebrows and looks between the teen and the former soldier. “I believe I have the perfect pick for her.” It’s really hard to miss the suggestiveness in Stark’s words, which makes Bucky start to panic and search for a way to get out of the game. But when he sees that Tony’s advancing on him he knows all hope is lost. “Barnes, will you like to do the honors?” The question leaves any form of negative response out, succeeding in leaving the younger (older) man speechless.

   Steve sees the interaction as if in slow motion but still isn’t able to put a stop to it. As he tries to object in Buck’s favor he’s shushed by Stark; who’s pulling an unwilling Bucky out of his seat and dragging him towards a scared-looking Blake. The rest of the Avengers stay in a trance, filling the room with awkward silence. They want to shut it down, but at the same time, there’s a strange sense of curiosity that suddenly overcame every each one of them and is gluing them to their seats. Blake gets up immediately the second Tony makes a move to grab her arm and walks obediently -and mechanically- in the direction of the utility closet located at one of the sidewalls, not wanting to be touched by Tony in fear of the action triggering any sort of memory and a consequent reaction.

   Bucky tries to vocalize his protest when the three of them get in front of the closet door, but before he can even begin to say something Tony opens the door and throws Barnes in first -who’s followed by an uncertain Blake that preferred to enter willingly instead of being shoved inside by Stark. The teen starts to turn around toward the entrance when the door is suddenly slammed shut and locked from the outside. With the darkness surrounding them, and a very big and upset Bucky in front of her, Blake begins to acknowledge that this wasn’t a good idea. She doesn’t need light in order to see Bucky freaking out, she can just _feel_ him doing so; all of the stress and tension coming out of him signaling that he isn’t comfortable with this situation at all (either by her presence in the tiny room or the dimensions of the same, she’s not sure).

   After a good minute of unsettling silence inside the restrained space, Bucky starts feeling claustrophobic and -despite his erratic behavior at the current moment- gently pushes Blake aside in order to pound at the door demanding to be let out. When the only response that he gets back is that they’ll “be let out once the seven minutes are up”, the Sergeant begins to consider kicking the door down. It’s only the fact that he’s locked with the teenage girl that makes him deter from that course of action, fearing that she might lose it in the confined space. A thought crosses his mind, one that says they should endure the accorded time period without doing _anything_ and thus be let out without any incident happening. But then again, he knows Stark’s not going to drop this until he’s sure that his demands have been met. He should better suck it up and make it as little lasting as possible.

   “This is all so pointless and stupid. I don’t understand why this ‘kissing’ thing is so important anyway.” Blake comments dryly, wanting nothing more than to get out and away from the man that plagues her every thought and dream. Nevertheless, Bucky’s mind stops reeling after hearing what the teen just said. _How can she say that when she doesn’t know what kissing feels like?!_ Buck questions mentally in shocked disbelief. He turns -his back to the door- and frowns down at where he thinks her face is. “Now I see why my handlers didn’t consider this useful knowledge to teach me.”

   “Why are you saying that? You don’t even know what is like. It’s one of the greatest things about human interaction! You’ve no idea what you’re missing.” His tone is filled with slight contempt and unbearable confusion. He can’t understand how someone could belittle something like kissing, out of all the things in the world. Seeing as she’s completely uninterested in the romantic action his resolve about _not_ giving in to temptation strengthens even more.

   “You’re just saying that to contradict me, but without any evidence is rather useless to try to convince me otherwise,” Blake says this matter-of-factly, but Buck’s the impression that she’s trying to sound nonchalant when she actually feels curious about the whole ordeal. He can feel that same hungry feeling from before taking possession of his body and thoughts, fogging his mind from any actual reasoning. He’s giving in to his most carnal desires, but the knowledge alone isn’t enough to make him pull away from her and the enticing idea of capturing her lips all to himself.

   “You want evidence? Fine, I’ll prove it to you myself then.” Bucky’s voice comes out more dark and guttural than he intended, making Blake instinctively take a step back from him in fear that he’ll hurt her. When she collides with the wall behind her -and surprisingly nothing else since Stark cleared the closet out in advance of tonight’s festivities- she automatically braces for the worst but instead is met with Bucky’s firm yet gentle hands grabbing her by the waist and the feeling of soft lips moving against hers. She doesn’t fully register what’s happening until Buck’s full body presses against her and he snakes a hand to the back of her neck, tilting her head up in order to deepen the kiss.

   Blake gasps for air, nearly not finding enough in the tiny closet; but what was supposed to be a mere intake of oxygen comes out more like a sort of needy moan -to which Blake’s completely oblivious about the effect it has on Bucky. Upon hearing this, Barnes’ mind spins out of control and throws out the window the little amount of restraining that he still possessed. He almost crushes her in between his muscular body and the wall behind her, barely noticing the sounds of complaining she makes. He’s too enraptured in the heat of the moment to stop for a second to see if she’s okay. When he hears no further noise of distress his concentration on the matter at hand returns completely. The older male knows that this craving has been present for some time now, but he’d no idea that it was this strong and hungry. He wonders briefly what she might be thinking about the entire situation, worrying that he might be doing this against her consent after all. The thought is pushed aside quickly after noticing the messy way in which she’s trying to reciprocate the kiss. Learning this, all of Bucky’s blood seems to dangerously travel southward and towards the place that he less wants it to be. If he doesn’t calm down soon this could escalate to uncharted territory -as if it hasn’t already. The last thing the metal-handed man needs is to have impromptu sex with the teen whose mouth he’s ravaging as of this very moment.

   His fears start to become a reality when Blake _actually_ _moans his name_ in the most sensual way he can think of, which turns him on to the point of not going back…The door is flown open all of the sudden and Bucky feels himself freeze in his place. A heartbeat passes in which none of them moves and no one says anything. Once he realizes that the game’s over, he flinches away from Blake; like if she just burned him or something. Still, the expression that he sees on her face makes him swallow thickly in an attempt to not say anything stupid and lust-ridden. Her dark and unfocused eyes -with the pupils blown even with light now flooding the closet- are looking straight at him as if pleading for him to continue. Bucky has to muster all of his self-control in order to not take the step that separates them and claim her lips once again.

   Unable to stand the sight of her red and swollen lips, the former Hydra agent spins on his heels and is instead greeted by Stark’s smug look. He feels anger taking possession of him all of the sudden, wanting nothing more than to erase the cocky smirk out of his face with a right hook. But he doesn’t, he just pushes past Tony and goes back to sit where he previously was right next to Sam. He notices with increasing anxiety that there’s a dense tension hanging over their heads in the lounge. No one is making eye contact with either Barnes or Summers, and the silence is becoming almost unbearable.

   “It seems to me that it went pretty well after all.” Is Tony’s sole comment on the matter; already pleased with the outcome of his scheming. Bucky glares at him, but it goes unnoticed; Stark’s attention is placed on the teen still standing in the utility closet -trying very hard to dissect what just happened between the two of them. Eventually, she steps out looking like what could be considered as flustered and stands in front of everyone. She’s attempting to put together something non-embarrassing to say about the act of kissing. “So, what are your thoughts? Did you like it or nay? And before you answer, take into consideration that not all people kiss the same. Barnes hasn’t seen that kind of action in a long time, so he might be a little rusty. Don’t let that discourage you, though.” Tony finishes by sending his trademark smirk in Buck’s direction -which is countered by a death glare from Bucky’s part.

   “It didn’t change my mind if that’s what you’re asking. I still think that kissing is useless and pointless. But…it wasn’t that bad, I guess.” The timid smile that appears on her face betrays her words of calculated detachment. “It can be enjoyed even without fulfilling a purpose.” This leaves Tony with his jaw comically dropped as he sees what resembles a smirk forming in the girl’s mouth. _The nerve of her!_ He thinks amused. And when he spies Barnes out of the corner of his eyes he’s met with a half-smug-half-shy smirk plastered on the other man’s face. _This is definitely the start of something, and I’m going to exploit it to no end_. Although Tony’s motivations could appear to be sinister, they’re just merely the search for some sort of twisted amusement. He means no harm to either of them, just the right amount of drama that a relationship like they could have would bring into the team’s life.

   Truth be told, those seven minutes didn’t do anything to lessen the awkwardness permeating the room, but it _did_ get rid of some of the tension surrounding the enhanced humans. At the core there’s still some anger left from the past days’ dispute; still, they look more relaxed to be around each other. And this makes Steve immensely happy. _Maybe this party wasn’t a bad idea after all_. He thinks to himself, content with the turn of events. He doesn’t miss the way Blake and Bucky lock eyes with each other and hold the stare for a whole of three seconds. _Something’s better than nothing, I guess_.

   Everyone goes to bed after a bit more of weird interacting, and for the first time in her life, Blake thinks she might dream of something else tonight aside from dark memories and a murderous Bucky. And his thoughts are the same, praying to some unknown god to abide by his desire and gift him a nightmare-free sleep for the night. What he would never imagine is that the very next day, things will start slowly going to hell for him.

 

* * *

 

   It’s an understatement to say that Bucky had what could only be described as a very realistic erotic dream -which of course involved certain teenager whose bedroom is next to his. Understandably, the once brain-washed-mind-controlled-assassin woke up with a serious case of morning wood. To be frank, he literally willed it to deflate out of pure stubbornness; truly an accomplishment. He couldn’t bear to face anyone -let alone Blake herself- with a very evident boner poorly hidden in his trousers. He contemplated the idea of just jerking it off, but the second that idea came to mind he wanted to hit his head on the wall until he died from a cracked skull. Just the thought of _doing_ something about it brought back the images that remained from his last dream. And that…that only made him want to walk into Blake’s room and not leave until his needs were satisfied. Of course, this would only prove to be a grave mistake, if not a suicide mission.

   Bucky kept his eyes cast away from the teen all day long. Not being able to even entertain the idea of what he would do upon seeing whatever expression she wore on her face. Lust? Disgust? Disinterest? He was too scared to find out. Blake -on her accounts of things- was oblivious to whatever seemed to bother the male avoiding her gaze. She didn’t have nightmares last night, but she can’t remember what she dreamed about; only that it was pleasant. She didn’t make a big deal out of the kiss she shared with the war veteran (even when that was her first), deciding that even if it was really good it was just a game they were playing; nothing more, nothing less. And it wasn’t like she wanted to do it again, right? Or at least that’s what she wanted to convince herself of.

   The rest of the Avengers were highly aware of the tension emanating from Bucky, and how calm and untroubled Blake appeared in contrast. Sam and Steve began to worry that Bucky would end up doing something rash due to his impulsiveness, but luckily his barely-restricted-sexual-tension held for most of the day and evening. Even during the tense and awkward dinner. But what pissed off Buck a little was seeing how unbothered Blake seemed about the whole thing while he was suffering from his self-imposed restraint. Despite this, Bucky ended up following through with Steve’s advice about “blowing some steam off”. He’s been restless since he stepped out of that closet.

   Bucky’s been feeling progressively more anxious and tense around Blake as the hours went by today, all of his energy has been drained in his huge attempt to keep himself from doing something reckless involving her. At this, Steve took some pity in his best friend and took him aside so they could speak openly without anyone else hearing about Buck’s frustration. He found out that his pal’s been experiencing an increasing excitement towards the younger female. Knowing well about the danger behind the possibility of Bucky’s urges taking the best of him, Steve told him to take the matter into his own hands -quite literally- to relieve himself of the problem -again, quite literally. And this is what Bucky ends up doing, only that he expected it to go better than it did.

   After an entire day of unreleased sexual tension, Buck feels physically and mentally exhausted. He just got out of the shower -which started comfortingly warm but had to end with biting cold water due to an unwanted erection. The problem is, the freezing water did nothing to reduce his state of arousal. He’s been on edge all day, feeling jumpy whenever Blake was around. And after all he had to put up with today, he wants nothing more than to go to sleep, but he can’t do that with such a painful hard-on. So, he decides that the best course of action is listening to what Steve said to him earlier. He distantly thinks about locking the door but abstains from doing so since no one would walk in without knocking. At this point at night, no one would walk in and that’s it. And thus he feels free to sit on one side of his queen sized bed and pull down his boxers along his pants.

   The almost one hundred years old man hesitates for a second, looking down at himself while having second thoughts. Ultimately, he decides that everything else can “go to hell” and grips the only pulsating part of his body -aside from his heart- with his flesh hand. He lets out a shaky breath of relief and closes his eyes for a brief but blissful moment, basking in the pleasure that such a small touch brings all over him. It doesn’t take long until he gets into the full traction of masturbation; the dull feeling of heat coiling in his belly making him gradually pick up the speed of the movements of his right hand. And of course -because Bucky could never get what he wants without it being spoiled somehow- it just happens to be the appropriate time for Blake to just walk in unannounced and uninvited. He’s frozen in place for the approximate two seconds that it takes Blake to open the door before he quickly grabs the comforter (that he had previously thrown aside on his bed) to use it as a means to cover himself in the hopes that she hasn’t seen _anything_. Bucky wants to think that she caught him accidentally instead of on purpose, but he can never be absolutely sure about these things.

   To every other person, it would be quite obvious what the Sergeant’s doing with his pants and boxers pulled down to his ankles, but he’s reminded yet again that Blake isn’t like everyone else. This means that she doesn’t understand how delicate this situation is for Bucky, and how dangerous it is for her. In her eyes, she only sees a disheveled and alarmed Buck who’s trying to hide something from her underneath his bed sheets, which in turn makes her conclude that he needs help with a certain problem but he just doesn’t want to bother her and thus he’s hiding it from her.

   The senior male can’t believe his ears when Blake boldly asks if he needs help -despite _knowing_ that she has no idea what he’s doing and that her offer of aid is nothing but innocent. Bucky’s at a loss for words, wanting more than anything to say _yes_ to her proposal and let her finish what he started, but he knows damn well that it would be morally wrong since he would take advantage of her naivety. He says no, trying to sound as convincing as he would like but failing at doing so. After a court “thank you” from his part -and a look full of concern and suspicion from Blake- the latter finally leaves him alone. The sex-deprived man sighs in relief and disappointment; choosing to finish the “job” as quickly as he can in order to not have someone else walk in on him like this. He lets his mind wander, imagining what it would’ve been like if he’d accepted her offer instead of turning it down. The lone thought of Blake kneeling in front of him with her hands around his manhood is enough to send him over the edge, having to harshly bite his lip in order to halt a low groan that threatens to escape from his throat. _It’s over_ , he thinks with relief flowing through his entire body.

   It’s not until the next morning that he finds out what Blake did after leaving his room. Apparently -according to Steve-, she went to the lounge in which she found the Captain making himself a cup of tea in the kitchen. Upon seeing the worry marring her face he asked what had happened and she responded by telling him what just transpired in Bucky’s room. All the while she recounted the episode Steve held -what he hoped to be- an unreadable poker face. Meanwhile, he was mentally cursing his best friend for choosing such a bad time for relieving his stress and even more for being unable to deem appropriate to lock his fucking door. Hopefully, for both of them, Blake wouldn’t have any idea of what happened.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things start getting into motion.


	7. The trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -“Do you really think this is a good idea?”
> 
> -“It can’t hurt to try, can it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What does a vacation with The Avengers look like? A whole lot of fun.

 

Saturday, 06:21 a.m. Avengers Facility, Upstate, NY.

 

   One month has passed since the beginning of Blake and Bucky’s fight. Although it seemed to have subsided after the game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, it regained its full force two days later after Buck’s stress-relief session. The last few weeks have been torture for the Sergeant, wanting desperately to let his urges run wild. As it turns out, he has finally admitted to himself that he’s in love with the teen -which is an actual disaster according to him, since she doesn’t feel the same way. To make it even worse, Blake’s completely ignorant of Buck’s distress. She has no idea what he’s been through in the days since the party. Nevertheless, this does _not_ mean that she’s totally fine. The teen’s aware of her developing feelings, even if she doesn’t know what they _are_. All she can say about the topic is that she feels “kind of weird”, especially around the Sarge. She’s falling in love too, but haven’t realized yet.

  Upon seeing the rising tension on the ex-Winter Soldier’s side, and the innocent naivety displayed by the teenager; Steve decides to settle this for once and for all with a camping trip. Being already spring -and with the lack of criminal activity or natural disasters that require the Avengers assistance- the team has been granted with a couple of weeks off to take up as vacations. Of course, if the need arises their fifteen days recess will be cut short in order to help wherever is needed. Initially Tony offered the whole team to join him on his journey aboard his yacht through the Caribbean. Only six took him up on his offer, the other four settled for a road trip to a national park in the neighbor state. It’s not hard to imagine whose idea it was.

   Steve and Sam talked for a few days post-vacation announcement and chose that the yacht thing would be too much for them, so they opted for camping in the woods. Knowing that the two experimented on individuals of the team wouldn’t feel comfortable or safe floating on a boat above water for several days, they thought that it would be better to take them along -not wanting to leave them on the compound in case that anything went really wrong while they were out. It would be a stretch to expect them to behave in any form of a civilized way when tightly packed inside a car for several hours before they could reach their destination. Still, it’ll have to do.

   Everything is planned already; all there’s left to do is put their bags in the car and hit the road. But there’s only one problem, and it is that they’ve no car to use. Stark’s last prank before boarding the jet that will take him and the rest to where the yacht is anchored on the coast of Florida was to hide _all_ of the cars belonging to the Avengers. This leaves Steve no other option than to take the Volkswagen Beetle that he used in Germany back when he and Tony were fighting over the accords. The little car had grown on him, so he requested to have it bought and shipped back to New York. Luckily for him, he kept this from Tony in an attempt to not have the car vandalized or something else. At the end, this proved to be a good idea, but it still means that they’ll have to travel in a tiny car that barely managed to stock the three grown men inside of it.

   “This trip ain’t going to be a piece of cake, that’s for sure,” Sam comments dryly, already dreading the fact that he’ll have to share the back seat with Bucky (since they can’t trust to have him sitting next to Blake during the whole trip). Steve smiles sympathetically to the younger man, knowing exactly what he means. Thankfully, neither of the other travelers declined the invitation nor did they accept out of a feeling of obligation. They’re doing this of their own volition. “Is everything ready? We need to go soon if we want to get there at a reasonable hour.”

   Sam is right and Steve knows it, so he begins to load their luggage onto the cart attached to the tail of their car. The Beetle has barely any space, so they had no other choice than to rent a cart to carry their bags. It was that or trying to balance them on the roof of the car -which of course is a stupid and dangerous idea. “Why don’t you go look for Buck and Blake while I check the engine one last time?” Steve says in order to have Sam bring them to the car and not him. He’s unsure if he’ll stay firm in his decision if Bucky begged him to not go on the trip with the rest of them. Sam -not knowing better about Steve’s reason to stay- complies and goes inside to retrieve the other passengers.

   When Steve looks at the faces of his fellow teammates upon seeing the car they’ll be traveling in, he recognizes dread and panic. Bucky’s ready to turn on his hills and run back to his room, locking himself inside until they leave without him; and Blake just looks at the vehicle with clear apprehension. _Great_ , Steve thinks sarcastically, assuming that in the worst case scenario he’ll have to strap them both to their seats with his own hands. Surprisingly enough, this isn’t the case; the two superhumans walk towards the car and question with pleading eyes to not be seated next to each other. “Buck, you and Sam will be seating on the back. Blake’s gonna be my co-pilot. I think she’ll appreciate the view of the front seat. You two can exchange seats later if you feel like it; any complaints?” His inquiry is answered with a nod coming from both of them; neither Blake nor Bucky objecting to their seat arrangement. “Great, hop in.”

   Bucky climbs in first, followed by Sam. Once they’re seated and wearing their seat belts, Steve and Blake get in and shut the doors closed. As the Captain starts the engine the car is filled with the tension coming from Bucky, who can’t think of anything else besides the teen sitting just one seat away from him. He has to will his blood to keep circulating normally instead of traveling down to his groin. _This is the worst situation in which I could get a boner_.

   Despite Bucky’s attempt to keep his cool, Sam only needs to glance at his face to see under how much stress he is -barely being able to wear a blank expression instead of a frown. Steve looks into the rearview mirror and locks eyes with Sam, who manages to transfer just with his gaze that the Sergeant’s not doing good at all. The Cap sighs deeply, trying to mentally prepare himself for the long ride they have ahead. _Damn Tony and his childish jokes_ , he thinks bitterly. The truth is they’re in for a tiring and uncomfortable trip that holds in store many surprises for them.

   It isn’t until a few hours later -when they’re about to leave the state of New York- that they stop at a gas station to eat lunch and use the bathroom. And it’s also at this point that they notice that the lock placed on the cart’s door wasn’t secured and that one of their bags is missing; coincidentally enough, is the one that belonged to the third tent -meaning that they only have two and that one of them will have to share it with Blake. _You’ve got to be kidding me…_ Is the collective thought of the three males, who silently curse among themselves at the situation. Steve wants to kick himself -since he was the one that loaded the cart- but after an apology, they get back on the road (trying to _not_ think about the consequences this will have).

   They stop one last time at a resting stop alongside the route so Steve can talk with Tony -who’s been texting inane things to them since they parted ways- and to have a little snack before starting their journey again. “So how’s going your little family trip? Is everyone getting along well? Or Blake killed the other two and only you managed to escape?” Steve has to swallow the retort that’s dying to come out of his mouth since he told himself to not fall into Stark’s games for at least the duration of the trip. So far he’s doing well, but they’ve only been away for a day and there’s more to come. He’s sure about it.

   “We’re doing well, Tony, and everyone is still alive and well. We’re just a bit tired, that’s all.” Curt and simple, as a response coming from Captain America should be. Still, he has to will it out of his throat -instead of what he _really_ wanted to say. “We’ll spend the night at an inn or something in the next town. This car isn’t the fastest, so we’ll be lucky if we arrive at the park by tomorrow’s evening. How are you all doing there?” Steve redirects the conversation towards Stark; knowing how he loves to talk about himself, but also interested in how his fellow teammate’s vacation is going.

   “Fantastic, we spent the day just sunbathing and drinking Mojitos. Truly amazing, you should’ve come with us; you’re missing out, Capsicle.” Pushing aside the sneer in Stark’s tone, Steve’s happy for them; he’s glad that they’re having a great time and hopes that his little getaway ends up having positive results aside from leaving good memories. Maybe they can get Blake to realize that she has feelings for Buck. She has them, _everybody_ -sans Bucky- knows that she does; but since she never felt anything like love, she doesn’t have previous experiences with which compare her current emotions.

   “It’s good to know you’re having a great time. Hope the weather doesn’t spoil it.” Steve says with just the tiniest hint of sarcasm, not really wanting to wish any adversity to his fellow teammates -only Tony. Stark notices his tone and compliments him on it, telling him how proud he is to which the Cap replies with a heavy sigh of exasperation. Classical Tony; can’t wait to make fun of whatever you say or do. They finish their conversation with a few more amenities and Steve goes to gather everyone so they can continue their trip to the near town where they’ll spend the night.

   “How long until we get there?” Bucky asks quietly; like he’s afraid that Blake will figure out his feelings just by hearing him talk. Fortunately for him, the teen is way too engrossed in the roadside to even register that he spoke at all. Sam’s been ignoring him since they made the first stop -they had a bit of a fight regarding the loss of one of the tents since none of them want to share with Blake or each others-, so he’s basically talking to Steve alone. His friend answers him, saying that there are only a couple of hours left until they reach the small town. Seeing as there’s nothing else to do, he decides to nap until they arrive at their destination.

   At hearing movement coming from the back, Blake turns around and sees a half-asleep Bucky who looks so peaceful and untroubled, with his head tilted against the door of the car and his eyelids closed. She feels herself smiling inadvertently at such sight. As soon as she realizes what she’s doing, she schools her face into the neutral mask she usually wears. She peeks sideways at Steve and notices a faint smile on the Captain’s lips. At this, she blushes furiously. _Damn that guy and his cuteness_.

   Just a couple of hours later they make it into a small town and book in a couple of rooms at a motel near the road. It’s just for the night and they’ll be back in the car as soon as dawn breaks. Bucky managed to fall into a dreamless sleep for an hour or so before being woken up by Steve. Thankfully for him, he’s set to share his room with Sam, despite preferring to be with Rogers (and actually really wanting to sleep on the bed next to Blake’s, but if that were to happen it would result in mayhem for the little traveling group of Avengers). They spend the night quietly and without any eventualities, trying their best to regain energy sufficient for the final bit of the trip tomorrow morning.

   As the first rays of sun emerge from the horizon, the Cap wakes up and consequently drags Blake from her uneasy slumber. It’s six in the morning and everybody minus Steve is still half asleep. The Captain has to almost literally pull his fellow teammates out of their beds and into the car to reassume the road trip. By the time they’re all settled inside the compact automobile, Buck’s already considering falling asleep again just so he doesn’t have to deal with Blake being so close and yet so far away from him again. The prospect of closeness and the impossibility of touch are taking a toll on his sanity and restraint.

   Upon the passing of hours in which he half-slept, Bucky realizes that he can’t fall asleep properly once more while confined in the tight space of the tiny car. The situation becomes even worse having the teen sitting just a couple of feet from where he is. Just the mere thought of her proximity already drives him crazy. The fact that he wants to touch her so bad isn’t helping him at all. He can’t just forego the age gap between them, and it makes him really uncomfortable to just think that she doesn’t even have an idea of what love is and what it entails. He could be taking advantage of Blake without her even knowing that he is. Despite everything, she’s still innocent.

   Before he can stop himself, Bucky half opens his eyes and looks towards Blake, admiring -for what feels like the first time- her features. She cut her hair just yesterday, removing a few inches of jet black strands so it wouldn’t become bothersome while on their vacation. Now it graces her sharp cheekbones, which makes them appear even more defined than before. It also brings out the delicate -yet strong- edges of her jaw, the one which Bucky would like to trace kisses along. Her curvy and slightly pointy nose and the voluptuousness of her lips only add to her already perfect profile, making her look like a model. And although he likes her small ears and her long neck, what he loves the most is her eyes. They usually are a distinctive shade of vibrant emerald green -kind of like Banner’s when he turns into the Other Guy- but whenever she uses her powers they become pitch black, like if the pupils had swallowed the entire irises. It’s a frightening sight to behold, but strangely beautiful at the same time. He watches -completely enraptured- as Blake slowly lifts her left hand to her mouth and starts chewing on her thumbnail. The sight of this sends an electric current down his spine at the same time that his blood begins rushing southward. He can’t help thinking about her luscious lips on his-“Wake up, soldier, we’re here.”

   It’s Sam who bursts his bubble and startles him in the middle of an obscene train of thought. He tries to school his face to no avail and exits the car as soon as he can. Once he steps outside he’s met with various shades of green that reach as far as the eye can see. They’re in a clear in the middle of a dense pine forest, near the base of a mountain and the shore of a lake. “This is the perfect spot,” Steve says with a hint of satisfaction in his voice. Bucky and Sam roll their eyes and start unloading the cart that carries their stuff while Blake wonders around, keeping herself close to their newfound camping area.

   As the three men stand to look at the only two tent bags that they have and a million thoughts race through their minds, Blake starts picking wildflowers that she finds around. She’s not particularly interested in them, but she finds them pretty. Also, she has a compelling feeling to give them away to Bucky. Why? She doesn’t know. When she glances over her shoulder in the direction of her teammates, she finds them looking preoccupied at their camping equipment. She cannot understand what the problem is, firstly because she doesn’t get what the big deal about a couple of individuals of the opposite sex sharing the same sleeping space is.

   Blake gets distracted for a couple of seconds contemplating how Bucky’s metal arm combs through his dark brown long hair. She has seen an old photo from the 40s, showing a young Sergeant Barnes who had short hair and was clean shaven, but she thinks that the stubble and long hair suit him better. At least his current self, she can’t say the same about the James that joined the army over 70 years ago, she didn’t know _that_ Bucky.

   The soldier looks up sharply and catches the teen staring straight at him for no apparent reason. She turns around immediately, trying to hide her blushing cheeks. Bucky keeps staring, but his attention is drawn back to the other two males when they stop talking in order to see what distracted their friend. The look shared between the two former lab rats doesn’t go amiss by either of the two superheroes bystanders, who in retaliation exchange a knowing smile when Bucky looks back at them, feign confusion.

   “So…how is this gonna go down?” Sam asks in between Buck and the Cap, already fearing their answer. “I think Bucky should share with Blake.” The Falcon can’t help it when a smug smirk draws across his face at the sight of Bucky’s increasingly panicked look of horror. Just the idea of the two of them sharing a narrow space all on their own is…haunting. The Sergeant is about to retort when he sees out of the corner of his eye the approaching silhouette of the younger female. Instead, he swallows thickly.

   “What’s taking you so long? Shouldn’t you start building the tents already?” Blake asks with the most innocent blank expression the men have ever seen. They share yet another look -for what feels like the thousandth time-, trying to convey their uneasiness regarding the youngster’s naivety. It’s actually hard. Especially because Sam just wants to laugh his ass off at the whole situation they’re in. Blake looks at each of them with increasing worry, not getting what’s so wrong about the tents.

   “The thing is…We were discussing the sleeping arrangements; that’s all.” That’s what Steve says, but still, the girl doesn’t get what he’s implying. He’s trying to come up with a sensitive way of explaining Sam’s suggestion to the young lady, so she won’t get upset or hostile about it. The Captain’s not even sure if he should allow this, but being completely honest, he’s not inclined to share a tent with a rather unstable teenager. Besides, even when knowing how dangerous it can be, he still wants to give Buck a chance to have some privacy with her. He’s certain that his best friend won’t do anything stupid that will grant him death at the hands of the younger female.

   “So, who am I going to sleep with?” Blake’s phrasing of the sentence comes with a kind of innuendo she doesn’t get, although the other three men do. Her question goes way over Bucky’s head and he’s trying really hard not to let that show right now.

   “With me.” The Sergeant is as surprised as everyone else that he managed to answer the question that was actually directed towards Steve. Blake only manages to look up at him with mild curiosity, while Sam tries not to laugh and the Cap suppresses a deep sigh of exasperation. This is not going as initially planned.

   “Okay, do you need any help with the tents?” The girl doesn’t seem to have any problem about sharing a tent with her almost-killer. _Could it have anything to do with the kiss?_ The ex-assassin asks himself, finding it weird for her to agree so easily. He doesn’t get much time to ponder on this as Steve is already answering Blake’s question and starting to give instructions.

   “Well, yeah, we’ll finish faster if we divide the work between the four of us. You and Buck can build your own tent while Sam and I build ours. It should be a piece of cake.” Steve says the last without taking into account the fact that Blake never went camping, but she seems not bothered at all about the senior male’s slip. She just turns over to where Bucky is already fumbling with the tent’s bag.

   They spent the next half an hour just putting up the two tents, with enough space in between to give the still-to-be couple a bit of intimacy if necessary. It’s not that Sam and Steve are condoning that they have sex, but it will do them good to get along better and get to know each other on a more profound level. After all, they’ve found in the other something they thought they never will: someone with shared experience. This is what Steve’s wanted for Bucky since he got him back, someone he could completely relate to, as horrible as that sounds. And it’s good for Blake to have this too.

   Once their things are settled in the camping site, with the sleeping bags in each tent and their kitchen stuff placed near the soon-to-be fire pit, they split the chores again; with Bucky and Steve going to get wood for the campfire while Sam and Blake get started on the food. Tonight’s menu includes some meat to be roasted on the fire together with vegetables and potatoes. Something easy to cook that’ll be plenty for the four of them (especially the two Super Soldiers who have the appetite of three people each).

   Sunset is just around the corner, the lovely and sunny day bleeding into the magic rainbow-like colors of the twilight; when the group of four finally sits down to eat dinner. They pass around the meat, roasted until medium well doneness. Although they had a couple of barbeques back at the compound since Blake started living with them, Steve insists that is not the same when done outdoors. He affirms that the meat tastes different, and even if the girl can’t really tell…she finds it just as tasty as any other meal she’s had since she was freed by accident.

   They all dine in what becomes a strangely comfortable silence without the need to force any topic of conversation just to fill the quietness of nature with something. They’re sited around the campfire, Blake between Bucky and Steve, and right across Sam with the pit separating them. At one point of their dinner, right when the sky becomes dark enough, Blake looks up just to get completely enraptured by the millions of stars that can be seen this far away from any big city. She hasn’t seen so many since the night she escaped that damned base.

   The wonderful view brings back all those memories, and surprisingly enough they don’t hurt as much as they did before. Blake looks to her right and stares right at Bucky, who stops eating once he notices the teen staring at him. For a moment he’s frozen in his place, thinking that he sees something resembling forgiveness in her eyes; but just then she looks away, with a faint blush painting her cheeks. The soldier can’t help but think how beautiful she looks when illuminated by the faint redness of the dancing flames. It’s kind of twisted, taking into consideration that he helped burn down the place she was kept in (which could’ve ended with her burned to death), but the image gets engraved in his mind almost like a hot brand leaving an ownership mark on him.

   They finish eating in silence; with no one having anything to say and neither wanting to break the peaceful quietness that surrounds them. It’s almost time to go to sleep, which makes Bucky become more and more anxious as the minutes tick by. He’s worried about what will happen when Blake’s left alone with him inside the confined space of their two people tent. Even when she has a slender and petite figure, he’s much larger than her and thus will be taking most of the space for himself, leaving them to sleep rather close to each other.

   “Well, Bucky and I will clean the dishes. Sam, make sure the fire won’t die; the nights can be quite cold here. And Blake,” Steve starts as he glances at the clueless teenager and then gets stuck thinking what to tell her, eventually deciding to just let her go, “you can go to sleep already; we’ll finish all by ourselves. Good night.” He dismisses her before grabbing a couple of plates to take with him, motioning to Bucky to do the same and follow him.

   Everyone follows as instructed and the guys get to work. Steve and Bucky go to wash the plates while Sam throws more wood into the fire. Blake looks at them go for an instant before getting inside her shared tent with Buck. She undresses quickly and puts on her pajamas before her “roommate” returns, not wanting to be caught in the middle of nudity by him. Oddly enough, when this possibility crosses her mind, she doesn’t find it that unappealing.  Still, she’s unsure about what she feels towards the older male, so she decides that it’ll be wiser to just keep clothed while in front of him.

   Blake manages to get inside her sleeping bag just in time, as Bucky enters the tent right after she finishes changing her clothes. He looks at her, bewildered, for a fleeting second and then proceeds to get inside his own bag. The veteran made the smart decision of getting changed in Steve’s and Sam’s tent, having previously asked them if he could do so. He knew that if he did it right next to Blake, he would’ve lost it entirely.

   The both of them silently agree to sleep with their backs turned to each other, displaying a great amount of trust, but really just not wanting to awkwardly face the other until they fall asleep. Before Bucky can give himself over to the tempting hands of sleep, he hears Blake faintly wish him a good night before falling asleep herself. He’s about to return the gesture, but her breathing pattern tells him she’s already unconscious. Ultimately, he just mutters it to himself and closes his eyes for the last time this night.

 

* * *

 

   Bucky slowly stirs awake; finding with stunned surprise that it’s already morning and he hasn’t woken once during the entirety of the night because of a nightmare. Remembering a bit of his dream, he now understands _why_ he didn’t wake up. Barnes didn’t have a bad dream in the whole duration of his sleep because he actually had a wet dream (if the wet patch that he can feel in the front of his underwear is any indication). At this realization, he sits up abruptly and stares -quite horrified- at the massive boner tenting his sleeping bag.

   The soldier is at a loss for words when he feels right next to him how the teenage girl begins to wake up. She’ll see it, he knows for sure. There’s no way he can hide it or make it go away, not now at least. Instead, Buck tries to come up with any kind of excuse that will turn this situation any less tense and uncomfortable.

   Blake incorporates half-groggily, having been awoken by the sudden movements of the man beside her. She rubs the lids of her eyes with the back of her hands, trying to get rid of any sleep still clinging to her. All the while, Bucky stays very still, hoping that she’ll just ignore him and either continue sleeping or just get up and exit the tent. None of these options happen as the teen just turns her face in the male’s direction and stares blankly at him for a few seconds, trying to get the gears in her mind to start running again. It proves to be a difficult task, but she finally manages to accomplish it.

   Once Blake regains the use of her consciousness, she looks at Buck’s terrified expression and then glances directly at what’s bothering him so much. Her expression lightens up immediately, filled up with curiosity. “What’s that?” She asks as if she’s never seen something like that, and she probably hasn’t given her past interactions with people. Bucky has to refrain from saying what’s dying to get out of his mouth. He can’t fuck up, not right now in the middle of this delicate situation.

   “Nothing,” Buck says with so little conviction in his strained voice that he can’t even convince himself of what he’s saying. He wants to face-palm so hard that he thinks he’ll die from the damage inflicted to his face by the blunt force he would put into the motion. Blake looks at him skeptically, not believing him at all. Instead, she opts for pushing the matter, being absolutely done with everybody just _not_ telling her things.

   “Yeah, right.” The girl answers with sarcasm, surprising the soldier and herself by the unexpected retort. This makes Bucky become more anxious and twitchy as seconds pass. He’s afraid that she’ll do something completely out of place like touching-

   “Don’t!” Bucky almost shouts as he quickly grabs Blake by the wrist, stopping her shortly of his crotch. He can’t quite believe that she just made a move to grab his junk, but when he reasons that she probably doesn’t get that that’s his manhood, he relents a bit. Still, he doesn’t let go of her, fearing that she’ll just touch him anyway. He glances up from her hand to her face only to find her eyes trained on his, staring with such intensity that he can almost feel that they’re boring holes into his skull.

   “Why? What is that?” Blake asks rather defensively, finding offense in the Sergeant’s denial of providing answers to her questions. She just wants to know, why can’t she? Buck feels his throat dry as a desert and is unable to move his or her hand away. He wants so badly to just let her touch him, and the lone thought of teaching her how to give him a handjob is enough to make his dick twitch with excitement. This, of course, doesn’t go unnoticed by Blake, who just points at his teammate’s groin. “It moved! What do you have in there, an animal?” The astonishment in her voice only fuels Buck’s fire even more and makes it almost impossible for him to keep his cool. The idea of answering her with “yes, it’s an animal and is hungry for you” fleetingly crosses the senior’s mind but he suppresses it before it escapes his mouth. One of the few positive things that were a result of the serum was the enlargement of his cock, as it happened with all of his muscles. No matter what, it always comes down to a man’s pride.

   “Hey guys, you already awake?” It’s Steve’s heavenly voice who interrupts them and pulls them away from what would’ve probably ended in something dangerous and totally inappropriate. At this, Bucky thanks the Lord and answers rather weakly that they’ll be out in a minute. Before Blake can start to protest, he grabs his clothes and exits the tent as fast as he can. Situation avoided…for now.

   “Good morning, what’s up with you?” Steve inquires when he sees Buck coming out of his shared tent with Blake. Once he sees the look of sheer horror and suffering in his friend’s eyes, he quickly glances down to his crotch area and notices the painful looking erection straining his pants. After seeing this, they stare at each other for an awkwardly silent second before Steve nods in understanding, gathering from Bucky’s expression that what happened was bad but not the worst.

   Everyone is sitting by the fire eating breakfast by the time the teen finally comes out completely dressed. She gives them all a wave and a quiet ‘good morning’, taking a seat between Sam and Steve, and accepting a plate from the latter. “So, we were talking with Sam about what we should do today and we thought it’ll be a good idea to go hiking up the mountain. What do you two say?”

   Both recently awoken enhanced humans look at each other across the fire and nod in agreement to Steve’s proposal for today’s activity, finding nothing harmful in going for a walk up the nearest mountain. Will it be awkward? Yes. Will there be sexual tension between them? Yes. Are they going to do something about it? No.

   After they finish their breakfast, the four of them gather everything necessary for the hike. Adequate shoes, hiking tools, food and water, and a few other things they think they’ll need. As the campsite is left behind, the group of friends starts their trek uphill in mildly uncomfortable silence. It soon becomes obvious what’s the reason for such tension in the air (if the fast-walking Bucky is anything to go by).

   Sam considers talking with Bucky to give him some advice regarding his current situation, but he decides to leave it for when he can talk with him in private, away from Blake’s super hearing. He’ll also have to speak with Steve in order to keep the over-worrying Captain in check and deter him from doing or saying anything that will worsen the situation. In trying to help the people around him, Steve can end up fucking up without meaning or wanting to.

   They eventually stop at the top of the mountain, with everyone feeling slightly tired…except for Sam, who’s trying to recover his breath. For the three enhanced humans a hike like this isn’t much of an exertion, but for a human like Sam -even when in excellent shape- it’s not the same case. Since a couple of hours have passed, and knowing that the Falcon needs to take a break before he can start the trip downhill, they decide to eat lunch sitting down on the rocks and taking out the food they brought with them.

   During the entirety of the trip upwards, Buck’s uneasiness towards Blake didn’t diminish at all. He’s as restless as he was when he got out of his tent this very morning. Once again the girl seems completely oblivious to the Sergeant’s antics. If either she doesn’t get what’s bothering him, or she doesn’t care…they’re not sure anymore. All Sam and Steve can think about is how this is going to explode if nothing else happens. Bucky’s a walking time bomb about to blow up at any given second.

   “I know you may have mixed feelings about it, and I’m not completely sure if it’s really a good idea either, but if we don’t help to soothe the situation before it’s too late…this might end badly. He’s going to snap sooner than later.” Sam, as always, is the voice of reason when Steve is too preoccupied with the repercussions something will have. The Captain looks at him with uncertainty marring his expression, but he can’t deny that his friend is in fact right in what he’s saying. He hates to admit it, but if he doesn’t help Bucky in his desire to get together with Blake…he can’t even allow himself to think about what could happen if Barnes reaches his limit.

   “So, what should we do then?” Steve asks more resigned than convinced, seeing no other way out of this complicated situation between his friend and his new teammate. Sam’s expression of concern morphs into one of relief, he was silently praying that Rogers wouldn’t put any resistance to his idea. Together they might pull this out and be capable of creating the right ambiance for the two ex-assets to get finally together. The possibility of them kicking it off is enough to convince Steve.

   “Well, first of all, we need to give them some space. Let’s walk away for an hour or two so they can have a bit of privacy. Buck won’t move a finger if he knows we’re within earshot”, Sam says and Steve silently agrees with him. Bucky isn’t the same over-confident guy he was back in the 40s. The Winter Soldier Program changed him forever, and even when he’s slowly regaining small pieces of his former self, he’ll never be the same. And that can be seen on the awkwardness he displays around Blake. “Still, we can’t just casually leave at night, it would be suspicious. We need it to seem casual and natural. For example, we can go on a little hike of our own while they stay back at the campsite.”

   Steve thinks about it for a couple of minutes, looking over at his oldest friend who’s, in turn, glancing at the distracted teen -who’s in turn just spacing out. He sighs heavily and refocuses his eyes on Sam serious expression. Rogers knows that he _has_ to do this, as it is for the well being of his friend, but can’t help feeling a little bad about taking a part in this scheming. “When are we going to do it?”

   It takes one quick glance towards the former Winter Soldier to see how barely contained is his libido at the very moment. This doesn’t give them much time, so Sam responds with a short “today”. As Steve’s about to object and bargain for a bit more of time, he’s shushed by Sam’s glare. They can’t keep delaying this any longer; otherwise, Bucky might explode and do something he’ll regret. The two Avengers exchange a couple of words more before returning to their teammates, saying that they can return to the camp if they want since both of them want to continue hiking for a while and probably do some training exercises while they’re at it.

   Blake, almost like obeying an order, accepts the offer without question and starts walking down the path they came. Bucky’s about to ask why they’re doing this all of the sudden and telling them to go back when he notices the looks he’s getting from his friends. He’s briefly reminded of the look he gave Steve when the Cap kissed Peggy’s niece back in Germany, so he understands that this is a setup. The soldier nods in gratitude and begins to follow the girl who he so desperately wants to spend some time alone with. And now, thanks to Captain America and The Falcon, he gets exactly that.

   Just as Steve loses sight of Buck, he gets a call from Tony and, for a split second, he wonders if they’re not being watched by the rest of the team…because seriously, Tony’s timing seems way too perfect to be coincidental. The Cap inhales deeply, trying to prepare for what he knows is coming. Talking with Tony is never easy and he can already assume the billionaire engineer will have something to say about the two team members heading back to their tent. “Stevie, darling, how are you and the kids doing?”

  Steve can’t help but pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. _Of course Tony would be already drinking, what did I expect?_ He wonders internally with sarcasm, reprimanding himself for believing otherwise. “Good, everyone’s good”, Comes Rogers short reply, trying hard for his tone to appear as nothing else than court and amicable.

   “Sounds boring, but great! We all here are letting the sun change our skin color from sickly pale to a rich caramel tone. It’s a pity you are freezing your asses over there between the woods and the mountains. I’m sure you would look hot as fuck with a couple of darker shades of skin tone”, Tony says easily as if he didn’t care what kind of interpretation his phrasing can get. He knows that Steve’s probably blushing red and searching for a retort that doesn’t come as mean as he really wants it to be. Stark silently chuckles to himself, amused by how easily he can stir Rogers up. “Anyway, I know it’s only been a day, but tell me about the two star-crossed lovers. Did they hook up yet?”

   The expression plastered on Steve’s face says all Sam needs to know about the direction his conversation with Stark has taken. He rolls his eyes at the playboy’s crudeness and mutters to Steve to make it short for the sake of everyone. “I’m not answering that in any way. It’s good to know you’re all having a great time, we wish it continues to be so. Thanks for calling, talk to you later.” He hangs up before Tony gets a chance to reply, not wanting to hear anything else from the partially drunk Iron Man. The two friends share a look of mutual understanding regarding how irritating can Tony become sometimes and decide to keep hiking until it’s time for them to go back to the camp.

   Meanwhile, as Steve and Sam endured Stark’s lack of tact regarding certain topics, Bucky and Blake walked back down in the direction of their camping site. The trip was silent and slightly uncomfortable, with the metal-handed man striding behind the black-haired teen. He can’t just stop looking at her petite, long limbered frame moving graciously through the trees. He can’t either stop himself from fantasizing about all the things he would like to do to her…

   “Why are you staring at me like I‘m some piece of meat?” Blake asks as she suddenly turns around to confront Bucky’s sex-starved stare, which in turn frightens her while unwelcome warm pools in her belly. She feels like something big is about to happen, and even when she’d like to stop it at the same time is too intrigued to do so.

   “I think we should talk about what happened in the closet, the night of the party.” The soldier could finally gather the courage necessary to bring the subject up with the teen. “We kissed, and afterward you acted like if nothing happened. I know that this is all new to you, but there’s no way in hell that your first kiss didn’t mean anything to you.” Even when trying his hardest to stay calm, Bucky can’t contain the rage rising inside of him. He’s so pissed that he’s the only one getting affected by all of this.

   Feeling slightly threatened by the Sergeant’s strange behavior, Blake starts to back away from him. Before she can realize what’s happening, he has her against a large tree. Completely captured by the male’s devouring gaze, she can’t do anything but stare at him while trying to grasp her fleeting thoughts. “I-it’s not like it hasn’t affected me at all, it’s just that I don’t know how to…process it.” Blake’s mind gets distracted by Buck’s eyes upon hers, the same feeling that invaded her in the closet while playing 7 Minutes in Heaven takes possession of her body once again. Inevitably, she ends up looking at his lips, only to look back up right before…

   “Screw it.” Buck exhales before smashing his lips against Blake’s for the first time in what felt like an eternity. He’s so happy he can barely notice that he’s crushing her between his body and the tree trunk. He also almost foregoes his metal arm crunching the tree bark right above her head. The 90-year-old has to restrain himself before unwillingly hurting her. That’s the last thing he wants to do, and it would totally ruin the mood.

   “I might not know much, but I believe we should probably continue this somewhere more private, don’t you think?” Blake manages to say when Bucky breaks the kiss in order to take a breath. The look he gives her says how right she is in her assumption. Happy that she learns this quickly, Barnes just grabs her by the back of her tights and lifts her off the ground so he can walk them back to the tents.

   The Sergeant is so into what’s going on that he barely dodges the surrounding trees while navigating towards the campsite. He’s more than eager to finally reach their destination so he can have the girl he’s currently carrying all to himself. _I’ve been waiting for so long…I can’t believe it’s actually happening_. Bucky makes a mental note to thank Sam and Steve once they come back, it’s the least he can do after they helped him so much. He remembers speaking with Sam about how he was going crazy after his kiss with Blake, by non-stop thinking about it and by her seeming disregard of the matter. He really thought that she didn’t give a shit about what happened in the closet, which made him increasingly sad and angry. It meant so much to the soldier, even when he didn’t want it to; he couldn’t help it, and Blake wasn’t making it any easier for him.

   Eventually, Sam told Bucky to try keeping it in his pants; otherwise, he could’ve hurt or scared the younger female since she’s completely inexperienced in the field of sexuality. He did try his best, but the pent-up sexual tension was accumulating at a faster pace than they thought it would. So, before his repressed and poorly contained feelings exploded causing him to do something he would regret, Sam -who was witness to all this- decided to have mercy on the poor veteran and aid him in his quest to woo the young lady. After all, even if the whole team still sees her as a teen, she’s above the legal age. So if you push aside the age gap between the two (among other things…), it’s not wrong for them to be together. Actually, it’s even endearing to some degree. They’ve been through the same kind of life; they’ve to deal with the same kind of shit, so they understand each other more than anyone else can. And that’s the thing Bucky likes the most about Blake.

   They somehow manage to make it back to the camp without running into any trees or tripping over roots. Even with Blake’s highly distracting mouth on his, Bucky was alert enough to guide them safely to the tents and avoid getting them hurt. As he gets right in front of their tent he kneels at the entrance and carefully moves forward until he can deposit the teen down on the sleeping bags. He could’ve let her go when he reached the campsite, but he didn’t want to, too afraid that what started with the kiss would end right then for some reason (the same probably being Blake realizing that she doesn’t want this after all…). The Sarge just wants to touch her until he can picture her entire body down to every detail by just memory alone, and then some.

   Blake isn’t in a much more coherent state, looking dazed and mildly confused by what’s coming next. She has the impression that the next logical step would be intercourse, but she’s not sure since she has never experienced the pleasure supposedly attributed to it nor she thinks that Barnes’ planning to have a child with her…If only Bucky knew what’s going on inside her head he would be scared shitless. The young lady pushes those particularly disturbing thoughts -knowing that it’s impossible- and tries to refocus her attention on the man in front of her that looks like he’s a hungry tiger staring at a juicy meal. His steel blue eyes seem to darken minutely and she can’t think of a sight more beautiful than this one to behold. She feels like there’s nothing or anyone more important to Bucky right now, and the thought alone makes her feel wet between her legs. _That’s new_. She can’t recall ever having that feeling (not that she has acquainted herself enough with that part of her anatomy anyway).

   Blake tells Buck as much, taking the older male by surprise at mentioning such a thing as “being wet down there”. He shouldn’t be impressed taking into account her lack of knowledge and experience in the subject, but like an animal in heat, he can’t stop the comment from going straight to his genital area. _Jesus Christ, she’s driving me insane_. He thinks with a lack of belief, not really caring anymore if he, in fact, ends up committed to a mental hospital thanks to her naivety regarding sex. The soldier can only think about unwrapping her like a Christmas present and teaching her about every position in the Kama Sutra. He hasn’t lain with a lady -or anyone really- since the 40s, so it’s understandable that he wants to do it for a week straight…at least. Still, he isn’t gone far enough into his craving to not take into consideration that this is Blake’s first time, and in turn, it’s **_really_ ** important to _NOT_ fuck this up in any kind of way. If he makes a wrong move, he could ruin the whole thing for her, forever. He most definitely doesn’t want that to happen today or any day in the foreseeable future.

   After like a minute of just intense staring -in which each of them was engaged in some seriously important inner thinking- Buck’s the first to snap out of it and starts to slowly move inside the tent towards Blake’s still unmoving body. When he gets as close as to being face to face with her -his lips just a breath away from hers- she finally refocuses her eyes and locks them with his, looking expectant and just a little bit scared. She’s conscious of his immense strength and how he could snap her in two if he wanted to. Damn, he could even do it by accident if they’re not careful enough. Blake swallows down any semblance of fear and decides to take a leap of faith and trust the ex-Winter Soldier. If anything goes wrong she at least might die not being a virgin anymore (not that this matters to her as much as being close to the person she loves and cares about, even if said individual is the one killing her). It’s when she stops to think about the fact that she just mentally said that she cares about Bucky and -more importantly- **loves** him (even if she’s still not completely sure if what she feels _is_ love, to begin with) that the man looking at her like she’s his goddess captures her lips with his own once again.

   The action ultimately distracts her from her thoughts and she opts for reassuming her thinking later in the evening when her attention isn’t demanded elsewhere. The black-haired girl gives control willingly, for the first time in her life, to the more experienced male -who, by the way, is doing an amazing job at kissing- and lays back down on the sleeping bags to give Bucky more room to move above her. He graciously enters the tent completely and hovers a few inches above her lithe body, too scared with the possibility of crushing her if he puts some of his weight upon her. She, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to mind too much about anything, being too enraptured in their making out session to even pay attention to her surroundings. The feelings of Bucky’s expert lips and tongue is enough to bring all of her defenses down and give in entirely to the pleasures of the flesh (despite not having any idea what that entails).

   Eventually, tired of just kissing her -not really, but still wanting more-, the Sergeant lowers his body until he’s supported only by his metal forearm, and thus allows his flesh hand to roam around the youngster’s body. He feels like he can’t get enough of her, and unbeknownst to him, she feels the same. His hand slithers down her torso, engraving the sensation of every last inch of skin in his memory (because somehow, at some point, her shirt just disappeared), and elicits a string of sinful moans and whimpers that hinder his self-control drastically. If he doesn’t do something soon, he’s gonna lose it completely.

   Buck notices rather late that Blake has been pulling at his shirt for quite a while now, desperately trying to gain his attention so she can tell him to just shrug the clothing piece off for once and for all. She’ll be lying if she said she hasn’t been intrigued by the muscles concealed by the soldier’s shirt. The sole sensation her hands gather through the thin fabric is enough to make her want to rip the offending item off his body. The poor girl is just too shy to do that or to even slip her fingers down the material. In her defense, she just wants to stand on equal ground -and to see and touch the rock hard chest and abs- since she disintegrated her own shirt ten minutes ago (how she managed to do that escapes her completely, probably something to do with her powers).

   After becoming aware of her intentions, he happily obliges and sits up on his knees to pull his long-sleeved shirt over his head. The look he gets in exchange is as endearing as sex-hungry looks go. Since she never experienced anything remotely like this (save the 7 Minutes in Heaven game), she isn’t even aware of the expression she’s making; nevertheless, it says it all. With his hair totally disheveled and his half-lidded stare, Bucky looks down at his will-be-lover and takes both of her hands into his, guiding them slowly up till they reach his partly-sweat-covered-muscled-torso. Her fingers tentatively skim over the slightly glistening pale skin and start their exploration of the older man’s body with exceptional care and interest. He feels like he’s in Heaven, or as close as he will get.

   Half aware of the open entrance of the tent, Bucky turns and quickly zips it closed so that they can continue in more privacy. He turns back to start kissing Blake again, only that this time he doesn’t stop at her mouth but rather continues down her jaw to her throat -where he leaves a string of love bites- and even further downwards, passing her breasts to go straight for her belly. The sounds that she makes all the while are reward enough for Bucky’s hard work (more like selfish enjoyment). The tightness of his pants is increasing alarmingly fast and he’s feeling more uncomfortable in them as seconds run by. Bucky has to get rid of them sooner than later, otherwise, he’s afraid that he’ll rip them open or something. Yeah, he’s _that_ strong.

   Blake is becoming more turned on with every touch and kiss from Bucky, and it’s almost unbearable. If she doesn’t get direct contact in the burning area of her pelvis, she’s going to scream. Thankfully for her, her silent demand is about to be met. The blue-eyed hottie above her is working her pants off; looking straight at her with his most hunger-filled gaze. She doesn’t complain or tries to stop him, actually quite eager to see what he’ll do next. He makes her wait no more and pops open the button of her jeans, drags down the zip and pulls them down all the way to her ankles -leaving her panties in their place, not wanting to scare her off by going all the way too fast. Throwing her pants aside, the long-haired man takes each of her bare thighs in his large hands and spreads them just enough to place himself between them.

   The teen looks at her older partner with confusion plastered on her face, wondering what the hell he’s doing there. When he starts lowering his head while not breaking eye contact with her, she gets an idea of his intentions pretty quickly. Buck places his mouth over her cloth-covered private parts and she becomes completely undone. Right on the verge of seeing stars thanks to Bucky’s grand skills at giving oral (amazingly conserved over the years…), Blake can think of nothing more than Barnes and her love for him. When the metal-handed male ads flesh fingers to his work, she’s gone. Her first orgasm ever hits her like a boulder and leaves her babbling incoherent words of appreciation for Bucky’s marvelous expertise. While Blake tries hard to regain her bearings the soldier licks her off of his fingers and runs his tongue around his mouth, trying to get as much of her as he can -not wanting to waste any drop. It’s like a drug for him; her pleasure, her excitement, her exhilaration. Even her dizziness and the slurred words of affection that still come out of her mouth. He’s pretty sure that she’s not keeping track of what she’s saying anymore.

   The older man is partly satisfied with having undone the teen completely, but he knows that they’re far from finished. Nevertheless, he lets her rest before jumping to the next part; he’ll need her completely aware and ready for it, he doesn’t want her to miss _anything_. “Stay awake for me, doll. We’re just getting started”. Buck says in a low and velvety purr, effectively gaining his partner’s attention. Blake nods her understanding and blinks her grogginess away, too curious about what follows to even consider falling asleep. Besides, it doesn’t seem fair to be the only one to get off.

   Feeling kind of awkward and rather clumsy, Blake props herself up on his elbows and looks at Bucky in the eye with an unreadable expression, effectively freezing him on the spot. He returns her stare with a poker face of his own, letting none of his frenzied desire show. It’s a battle of wills. Who will give in first? Before Barnes can begin to think about his next course of action, Blake moves cautiously but consistently towards him. She sits up and reaches for Buck’s trousers with the clear intent to open them and look at what’s inside. She hesitates for a second upon gracing the edge of his pants with the tips of her fingers, but one look at Bucky’s expression of utter sexual hunger is encouragement enough. She pops the button open with deliberate slowness, never taking her eyes off of Bucky’s -who’s staring at her while in some sort of trance as if hypnotized by her movements. The zip goes down next, the sound of it moving ripping through the silence of the tent. _This is it_ , the both of them think, half scared and half excited.

   It would be correct to say that Blake finds the length of Bucky’s manhood quite impressive, especially since this is the first time she sees a penis in other than pictures and videos (educational ones at that). Because she never saw porn or any other graphic or descriptive depiction of intercourse, she honestly doesn’t quite know what to do with it, or what’s to be done. So, as with most things in her life, she goes by instinct and tentatively caresses his groin over the thin fabric of his boxers. Bucky _shudders_ at this barely-there contact, having almost forgotten the sensation of someone else’s hands upon him. The pleasure is exquisite to no avail. _I could almost cum from this alone, Jesus_. The soldier scolds himself mentally, missing the times when he used to have more stamina regarding this kind of activity. If lucky, though, he’ll have several opportunities to regain his state of “optimal sexual endurance” -which should be even better than 70 years ago since he’s an enhanced human now.

   Then again, Bucky’s resistance concerning various types of physical exertions has been highly improved, so by proxy, the same improvement should work in regards to sexual activity. He can run faster and more; he can lift more, and he should last more than a round or two…right? He hopes so at least. Then again, it’s been a _long_ time. He just hopes that he can live up to Blake’s expectations, whatever they are. This reminds him yet again that the teen has no experience in the field of sexual interactions nor she even knows about half of the stuff related to that. How can she really have any sort of expectations if she’s only aware of the basics of human reproduction? Before Bucky goes any further with this -which seems more of a bad idea by the second- he needs to make it clear enough to Blake that what’s most important is that she feels good and comfortable. The last thing the soldier needs is to find out later that he unknowingly raped her. After all, he _has_ noticed the way she just accepts certain things as if they were commands given by her former handlers.

   “Blake,” Bucky says with somewhat of an uncertain voice, realizing that this is the very first time that he calls her by her name and that he actually likes a lot the sound of it, “if there’s _anything_ that you don’t like or that you don’t feel comfortable with, you **need** to tell me, okay? I don’t want to hurt you or upset you in any kind of way, and if you want me to stop all together just say it and I will. Do you understand?” He looks expectantly down at her while the young woman tries to process the meaning of his words. The concept of _wanting_ anything or the importance of feeling _comfortable_ with things is still quite new to her, which makes her have some trouble with not accepting everything as it is. She has her own desires, of course, but she still can’t voice them completely. Nevertheless, she nods with confidence at the man kneeling before her, indicating that she understood what he said. She’s unsure whether she’ll actually be capable of doing such thing as trying to stop him if she doesn’t like what he’s doing, but at the same time, she doesn’t even know what she likes and what she doesn’t. This is the perfect opportunity to find out.

   Buck has the feeling that Blake nodded half-heartedly and that she won’t voice her discomfort at all, which in turn makes him even more nervous about the whole ordeal. If he’s not careful enough, he could scar her for life; more than he already did. He wishes now that he could have waited longer and thought better about this but now is too late to turn back. Eventually, without either of the two superhumans looking away from each other’s eyes, Blake rests the palm of her right hand on Bucky’s tenting boxers, touching his length through the soft cotton underwear. The Sergeant exhales shakily the air that he hadn’t realized that he was holding; neither has he noticed that he had closed his eyes. He opens them once again and looks down at Blake’s face, which is wearing an expression of mild amazement. The veteran swallows thickly at the sight, wanting nothing more than to rip from his overly-hot body the rest of his clothes -and do the same with Blake’s remaining pieces of clothing.

   The organ under Summers’ hand is pulsing like a heart. She learned a lot -from the anatomical point of view- about male genitalia, but this particular characteristic didn’t appear in any of the textbooks or articles she had read about the subject (or at least she doesn’t remember reading about it). She’s fascinated by this, alongside the hardness and size of it. She gives it a tentative squeeze and watches enraptured as Bucky lets out a soft sigh of…relief? Pain? _Pleasure_? She can’t pinpoint the exact emotion, but she hopes it’s the last one. On the other hand, the former 40s Casanova feels like he could reach his climax by just being palmed through his boxers. _How pathetic; I used to be better at this_. The nearly-one-hundred-years-old man thinks grimly to himself, unable to not scold at his virgin-like state of arousal. _She’s going to be the death of me, that’s for sure_.

   Blake’s exploration of Bucky’s private parts it’s endearing, sexy and irritating at the same time. He understands that it’s important that she takes her time with this; otherwise, he could scare her off. But the slowness of her movements is turning out to be torture for him. He feels like crying and screaming, asking for dear release, but this is not about _his_ pleasure -or at least not completely. It’s about hers; so he better sucks it up and concentrates on not coming in under a minute like a damn schoolboy. Instead, to keep himself busy, Bucky places his right hand over Blake’s bra clasp and unhooks it single-handedly in a swift motion of his fingers and wrist. This action consequently distracts Blake from her intense study of his groin and makes her look up at the soldier’s looming face. On his part, Barnes doesn’t lose a second and bends down even lower to be able to kiss her. That -and the unexpected cupping of one of her breast- is enough to make her grab Bucky’s junk almost painfully hard. The growl that leaves the man’s throat would sound scary in any other situation, but here it only serves to spur her on.

   Without wanting to, Blake rips open Buck’s underwear -in the midst of her forceful gripping of the clothing item- and sets free his entire manhood. The abrupt occurrence makes Bucky stop his exploration of Blake’s oral cavity and look down at the damage inflicted upon his boxers (it seems he can no longer wear this particular pair, but he doesn’t care that much about it). Disregarding the now uselessness of the cloth, he decides it’s time to get rid of the rest of his clothing. He gently pushes Blake back and tries his best to wiggle free from the remaining fabrics covering the lower half of his body. He throws his pants aside and rips what’s left of his boxers all the way off of his body, leaving himself completely exposed in front of the teen. _There’s definitely no going back from this_ , the soldier anxiously thinks to himself; too excited and nervous to say anything. Meanwhile, Blake has been staring openly and directly at Bucky’s dick since she accidentally tore up his underwear. She knew that he was big, she even _felt_ it, but seeing it…it’s a whole different thing. She can’t help but swallow in fear at the thought of having something _that_ big inside of her. If she hadn’t survived a bullet to the head she might think that this thing will break her in two and kill her. Needless to say, she’s starting to have second thoughts about having sex with Bucky.

   To Barnes’ detriment, he can read loud and clear the horror plastered on the youngling’s face. Damn, even he’s scared that he’ll hurt her. This is her first time, after all. “It’s okay, don’t be afraid. We’ll take it slow and if it hurts too much, we’ll stop. Will you tell me if you can’t handle the pain?” Bucky asks worried, but the nod he gets in response is enough to settle some of his fear. “One last thing, though”, he says as he hooks his flesh fingers under Blake’s panties and tears them off of her body. “Now we can proceed”. It’s the last thing he says before bending down to meet her in a sloppy and passionate kiss. To intensify the feeling, Bucky lowers his body as much as he can -without crushing Blake- so they can have skin to skin contact (which in turn makes them even more aroused than before, if that’s even possible).

   Blake always felt uncomfortable and vulnerable when exposed like this. But right now, under Bucky’s hot and sweaty body she feels nothing less than safe (and this is actually ironically funny considering he used to be the subject of her terrifying nightmares). The man that she feared so much turned out to be the one that she feels the safest with; even when the same man has shot her twice (the first time effectively killing her) and is a metal-handed-super-human-unstable-ex-Hydra-assassin. If her thoughts weren’t enough of a reminder, the sudden feel of Bucky’s metal arm on her hot skin proves to be sufficient. The sensation of the cold and hard metal against her soft and warm skin is enough to make Blake arch her back up towards Buck’s body and shudder at the contrast of temperature. She briefly wonders what those hard and smooth fingers would feel like inside of her and the thought alone is almost enough to send her over the edge for the second time this afternoon.

   Noticing her state of need, Buck puts his whole weight on his metal arm while the other one travels downward towards Blake’s lady parts. Before his hand can reach its intended destination, the teen grabs his flesh wrist and stops him altogether. He looks her in the eye, trying to discern what she wants to communicate. All it takes for him to understand what she desires is her gaze drifting towards his metal arm. When they lock eyes again, Bucky lifts an eyebrow in the pose of a question, not entirely sure if he understands what Blake’s requesting. It takes a timid but reassuring smile and a hand resting on his metal forearm for Bucky to agree to such solicitude coming from the teen. _This_ he has never done before. But, it can’t really hurt to try it…can it? If bad comes to worse, he’ll just stop and make sure that the damage isn’t too bad.

   Bucky takes a deep breath and braces himself, changing his weight support from one arm to the other. He lowers his head to recapture Blake’s swollen lips while his metal fingers skim over her torso, leaving goosebumps in their wake. When they finally arrive at their destiny they stop for a second at the little bundle of nerves to pinch, rub, and flick it prior to moving further down to her entrance. All the while she writhed and moaned under him, Bucky left a trail of love bites from her jaw line to her breasts, teasing and biting nonstop. He can feel her shaking and hear the trail of nonsensical words coming out of her mouth. Bucky’s close to snap and fuck her into the ground, wanting nothing else than to “sheathe his sword” deep within her. But he _still_ has to wait. It’ll be worth it, though; he knows. Just a little longer and they both will be free; from the apprehension of hurting one another, and from the fear of their respective feelings toward each other.

   The sensation of metal breaching her warm and soft insides brings her out of her dazed state. Blake focuses her eyes on the face right above hers and sees that same hunger-filled expression that makes her panties get wet. “You’re gorgeous”, Bucky says breathless, with all the feeling in the world. And she believes him, even if she doesn’t think so herself. She’s about to respond but a second finger entering her is enough to shut her up and instead let out a high pitched moan. The sound is music to his ears and serves as fuel for his raging fire. He wants her so bad, and she wants him as well.

   “P-please”, Blake manages to stutter out just as a third and final finger slips inside. She can’t get another word out, she feels like slowly losing herself at this point. She either gets the release she longs for or she’s gonna go crazy. Bucky wants so bad to give in to her plea, but at the same time, he feels like teasing her a little further, wanting to hear her beg a little more. It’s cruel, to deny her what she’s asking for, but he can’t help himself. The look that she’s giving him is full of excitement and fondness; making Bucky want to fuck Blake hard and at the same time make sweet love to her. Belatedly he realizes that he can’t drag the foreplay any longer, it’s time to get to the coupling part…

   “You ready, doll?” Bucky asks huskily, with his blown-out pupils focused on Blake’s expression, waiting for her to give consent. The teen only manages to nod a little, still preoccupied with the matter concerning Buck’s girth. “It’s going to hurt a bit at the beginning, but if you can pull through the pain there’ll be a world of pleasure waiting for you on the other side. I’m gonna make you feel really good, I swear”. The promise holds enough assurance to make her agree, so she nods once again and prepares herself for the incoming feeling of her tender flesh being ripped apart.

   Blake doesn’t feel anything at first, too overwhelmed just by the thought of it. But right when she began to think that it wasn’t as bad as she believed, the pain shot straight from her pelvis through all of her body. Searing, white-hot pain, almost like a gunshot wound. She can’t stop the scream that's torn from her throat, and it makes Bucky still his movements immediately. He looks at her, half worried and half frightened, hoping that he hasn’t hurt her really bad. Her face is scrunched up in pain and her hands hold a vice-like grip on his shoulders. For a moment, Bucky wonders if she might rip his arms off by just gripping really hard, but the pressure starts to lessen by the second. She is growing accustomed to him, as painful as it is to have something so big in such a tight space. Thankfully for both of them, women’s lady parts are quite flexible and given enough time to adjust they can accommodate any sort of size and length.

   “Just breathe, okay? The pain will subside in a moment and then it’ll be all pleasure and enjoyment”. Blake can barely hear Bucky’s words of encouragement through the pain still cursing all over her. The Sergeant sees this and opts for sinking even deeper, figuring out that if they wait until she becomes accustomed to the length already inside of her, when he pushes more of it in it will be the same as the beginning all over again. Better to get it over with and have her grow used to his full size, instead of going inch by inch. After all, if she survived a rifle bullet shot to her head, she can handle his dick. Also, he might hit…Blake’s sudden scream of pleasure is confirmation enough. _Jackpot_ , Bucky thinks smugly, having found the teen’s G-Spot without much trouble. Now things should run more smoothly than before.

   Through the sea of pain, Blake feels a beacon of pleasure soaring from her nether organs all the way up her spine. She can’t explain what the feeling is like, but it makes her forget completely about the pain she was suffering till recently. _Good Lord, this is amazing_. She can’t help the irony of mentioning a deity she doesn’t believe in, but right now she feels like she’s in Heaven. Every sensation overwhelms her. The sweat shared between them, among other bodily fluids; the contrast of their hot skins against the coldness of the air; even the silence of their surroundings, bathed in the warm light of the approaching sunset (when has so much time passed, they don’t know, nor they care). Everything feels right; it feels special and just dream-like. They both fear for a fleeting second that this might be nothing more than a mere dream; just another nightly fantasy made up by their sleeping brains. If it weren’t for the feeling of realness, they’ll believe just that.

   “Are you okay?” Bucky asks before moving any muscle, concerned that she might still need more time to adjust. Blake nods confidently, wishing that Buck would start moving already. She doesn’t have to wait any longer, as the war veteran begins to slowly pull out only to push in again with more force than expected. He knows that he can fuck her senseless without losing the romantic atmosphere going on. “That’s my doll, taking it like a champ”. Bucky’s words of encouragement would sound cheesy to anyone else, but to her, they’re nothing short of affectionate. In retaliation, Blake hooks her legs around Bucky’s waist and in an incredibly bold move she drags him forward to sink even deeper inside her. The low and almost animal-like grunt she gets in response is enough of a reward, and her action ends up making the soldier pick up his pace in order to satisfy his girl’s request of harder pounding. He feels so close to conclusion, yet he wants to keep going forever, fearing that if they break apart they might never be this close again.

   “I love how you tighten around me, babe. I know you’re almost there, let’s fall apart together”, Bucky says somewhat poetically and grips her hip with one of his hands while using the other to support his weight. If he can make her come with just his cock, he’ll consider his work well done. Hell, he might even consider going for a second round after this if she’s still coherent enough. If her moans and whines are anything to go by, she’s about to fall over the edge. She’s barely conscious at this point, babbling nonsense nonstop, trembling erratically while her pelvic muscles begin to tighten around Buck’s shaft. They’re just about to reach climax, and it seems like it’s going to be earth-shattering for both of them.

   “Oh God, Blake!” The already tight space of Blake’s interiors constricts even more by her suddenly unexpected orgasm and consequently pulls Bucky with her down the pleasure vortex. He goes blind for a second, seeing nothing but white, feeling nothing but his all-consuming release. It feels good; it feels amazing; it feels different than any other time, like if it was the first time he’s experienced this in his entire life. This is the case for Blake, though. She tries to ride the still coming waves of her climax but finds herself lost among them. The feeling is new and exciting, an encompassing kind of warmth spreading all over her. She wouldn’t mind doing this every day, especially if doing it with Bucky. Blake feels full, physically and emotionally, like her life is finally complete.

   “That was wonderful, doll. I hope I gave you a good time”. Buck’s words are slurred as if he’s in a state of dizziness, trying hard to gather his fleeting thoughts. His low and silky voice is threatening to stir up Blake’s arousal once again, but she can’t keep from listening and falling victim to its effect. It’s like a drug for her; she feels compelled every time that Bucky speaks to her, especially when doing it in such an intimate way. Blake can’t stop the goofy smile from drawing itself on her face, feeling content with everything that has happened. Honestly, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

   “I feel sticky”. The seemingly inane comment surprises them both but it’s Bucky the one to let out a barking laugh, adding to their already perplexed state. It’s the first time Blake has heard the soldier laugh truthfully and wholeheartedly, and Buck doesn’t even remember when it was the last time he sincerely did so. Deciding to not contribute any more to Blake’s stickiness, the Sergeant disentangles himself from her body, heavily collapsing beside her. It’s true, they’re both smeared with different kind of fluids and -as always in the aftermath of sex- it becomes quite disgusting. “You think there might be a bathroom or something close by?”

   The blue-eyed man turns to look at the raven-haired girl that’s staring intently at him. “I don’t know, doll. Maybe, but I would have to check the park’s map to see if there’s any near the campsite”, he says while pushing aside the wet hair sticking to Blake’s eyes. Even in the afterglow of sex, she looks beautiful to him. _She always does_. Bucky wishes this moment could last forever, but he knows that they probably don’t have much time left. Steve and Sam might already be on their way over there. It wouldn’t do for them to be found entirely naked and filthy. “Just let me get dressed and search for the map in Steve’s tent”.

   Slowly getting up, Bucky starts grabbing his previously discarded clothes and putting them on. All the while, Blake looks dreamily at him, admiring the way each and every muscle in Buck’s body moves when he does. He looks back at her smugly and grabs a new pair of boxers to use in replacement of the ones she tore up. After putting on his pants and shirt he finally makes it out of the tent. Meanwhile, Blake can do nothing more than lie bare and tired on Bucky’s open sleeping bag, waiting for him to come back. “Found it”, he says when poking his head back in their tent, “the showers are like a mile or so from here. Should we go?” The question comes out as half shy and half worried, with Buck not wanting to encounter many people on their way over there. Since the feeling of dry sweat and cum is way too gross, it out-balances the fear of unwelcome possible human interaction. Blake nods in agreement and takes the clothes that Bucky’s handing her; the ones that she shed an hour or so ago -adding a new shirt since the last is gone forever- and the clean ones she’ll wear after showering. They both start walking towards the showers, exchanging goofy smiles all the while.

 

* * *

 

   For Steve Rogers, it felt like an eternity has passed since he saw his best friend head back to their campsite accompanied by the girl he’s head-over-heels for. Needless to say, he has been freaking out for the past thirty minutes, more or less. In turn, Steve’s worry only serves to irritate Sam beyond tolerance. He’s about to snap and tell Rogers to suck it up, but he knows better than to do that. “I mean, what if one of them has a panic attack or something…”

   Sam rolls his eyes despite himself and tries very hard to not scream bloody murder at his fellow Avenger mother hen attitude. They’re supposed to be enjoying a snack on the top of the mountain while resting a little and making some time before going back to the campsite, but Steve’s complaining is surely ruining whatever peace Wilson hoped to get. “They’re gonna fuck, Steve! They’re **not** going to fight”. Sam couldn’t keep quiet any longer, and even when he knew that wasn’t the best way to placate his friend, he couldn’t really care about being polite anymore. If you want to get a point across when talking to Captain America, you better make it as blunt as possible.

   The Falcon can see the exact moment Steve grimaces and pulls a face at his choice of words, considering them to be more vulgar than he’d like. He wants to scoff at him for his use of inappropriate language but ultimately decides to stay quiet instead. There’s no use in arguing about mannerisms; even if they need to make time before returning. It wouldn’t do either to have a meager conversation, so they’re left with not too many options for entertainment. Naturally, Steve ends up pushing the matter even further, unable to help himself. “How can we be sure that this is what Blake wants anyway?”

   “Jesus, Steve!” Sam can’t honestly believe that Rogers just said what he heard. The mere implication that they might have set-up Blake to be raped without her knowing is enough to make him want to scream at the Cap how dense and naïve he can be sometimes. “You can believe me when I tell you that the only ones oblivious to Blake’s feeling were Bucky and herself, and you too now apparently. She wants this, even if she didn’t know it at first. She does now, that’s for sure”. Wilson’s argument, as logical as possible, doesn’t seem to convince Steve at all. “Listen, you remember what happened the first night Blake spent at the compound, right? The kid pinned Bucky to a wall the second she registered him. If he were doing something against her will, even when she has newfound trust for him, I’m pretty sure she’d manage well enough. So don’t worry, they’re doing nothing more than having a good time”.

   Steve might not like it, but Sam has a point; the fact that Blake’s knowledge about sex or love isn’t wide doesn’t mean she has no feelings regarding those two, even if she can’t fully understand them yet. It takes time to do so, but it takes longer if she has no experience to discern one thing from another. Bucky’s helping her with that, he’ll do it right; Sam trusts him to do the right thing. “You’re right, Bucky wouldn’t hurt her on purpose, and he’d know if something was wrong. I trust him with Blake”, Steve says more to himself than to Sam, needing the reassurance. “You know, maybe…”

   Their amenable talk gets interrupted by a scream coming from the base of the mountain, one that only Steve manages to pick up. This, of course, makes the Captain’s confidence crumble at light speed and get automatically worried. He recognizes to whom the voice it belongs, so he assumes the worst. Sam, as always, has to placate his friend’s preoccupation. “Dude, whatever you heard, I’m sure it wasn’t what you’re thinking. They’re fine, quit worrying about it”, he says without a hint of concern, feeling relieved about not having heard what probably was Blake’s scream of pleasure (or pain, but in the good sense). “Actually, it might be a good sign. But, we’ll know all the dirty details later”. Sam finishes with a devious smile, making Steve reproach him silently.

 

* * *

 

   When The Falcon and Captain America finally make it back to the camp, Bucky and Blake have already returned from the showers. The looks they exchange convey how curious and awkward everyone feels. It’s obvious to Barnes that his two friends want to desperately ask how it all went down. Well, maybe just Sam, Steve wouldn’t like that level of detail. As much as Bucky has changed, Steve did not; still all 40s charm and politeness. He just hopes that his best friend isn’t as miffed as he might be by such events. Barnes’ pretty sure that Wilson had to convince Rogers to not put a stop to what happened, and although that disappoints him a bit, he understands.

   Fortunately for them, the sun is about to set, which means that it’s time for dinner and an early bedtime. Steve and Sam start prepping the meal (this time is rice with veggies), while Bucky sets the fire alive once again. Blake -still learning this kind of mundane chores- just sits in front of the rapidly-coming-to-life fire and stares intently and unabashedly at Bucky, who’s in turn extremely aware of the piercing gaze placed on his face. He can’t help the blush that begins to spread all over his face and neck.

   “It looks like it’s going to start raining soon. Since we can’t keep the fire going, it’ll be better to grab the extra blankets that we brought; otherwise, we’ll freeze to death”. The last sentence of Sam’s comments makes Bucky visibly shudder and brings a pained expression up to Steve’s face. Not his best choice of words, honestly. To talk about “freezing to death” in front of those two…it’s a delicate matter; first, because the Cap literally almost did; secondly, because it reminds Bucky of his Hydra years. “I’ll just go get them…”

   Sam gets up before the awkward silence persists any longer, not really wanting to get into a heart-to-heart conversation right now. Blake just sits there, looking at the three men, not fully grasping what’s going on (as per usual). It takes her a little while to figure out why Wilson’s words seemed to upset the other two males so much. She finally understands both soldiers’ resent towards coldness and empathizes with them, hating low temperatures as much as they do and not wanting to sleep in that kind of condition ever again.

   As The Falcon comes back with the two extra blankets they brought just in case this kind of situation occurred, the group exchanges a look between the four of them. There are only two blankets, so it means that they’ll have to share. Steve and Sam don’t seem to have a problem with sharing, and they assume neither will Bucky and Blake, after today’s activities including them both. Barnes grabs one of the blankets and heads for his tent, thinking about changing quickly before Summers gets in, but then he reminds himself that he already has seen her naked -and vice versa-, so it shouldn’t really be a problem. Unless of course she still feels some semblance of modesty regarding the bareness of her body.

   Blake bids her goodnight to her fellow teammates and gets in the tent at the exact moment that Bucky’s taking off his shirt. She stops dead in her tracks and just stares at his naked torso, admiring once again the well-defined muscles there. Buck looks at her unabashed stare and lets a sly smirk draw across half of his face. “You wanna go for the second round?” He asks not really expecting an answer; he knows that it’s still too soon for them to go at it again. They’ll have to wait until tomorrow at least; besides, they can’t do it while the tent at the other side of the campfire is occupied. It would be even more awkward on the following morning that it already was today.

   “As entertaining as that sounds, I’m still feeling pretty sore from this afternoon”, Blake says in a neutral tone, trying and failing to hide the smile pulling at the corners of her lips. The truth is, she could forego the pain, but she doesn’t want to be heard by the other tent’s inhabitants. “How about we talk instead; we owe it to each other after all”. Bucky agrees with a silent nod, extending his right hand for Blake to take it. She does and lets him start undressing her while she does the same to him.

   When it starts to rain, they are already stripped to their underwear, tucked in their respective sleeping bags and covered with the blanket. Buck can’t help feeling a little ridiculous in this situation; after what they did just hours ago, sleeping in separate bags doesn’t seem to make much sense. But to be honest, Bucky feels as shy as Blake is. At the same time, this is kind of a good way to be positioned while entering a territory they haven’t been in before: intimate conversation. Both of them are known by their teammates to be quiet and reserved, but if they want this to work out, they have to be open to one another.

   Just as the two superhumans turn to each other, their enhanced hearing picks up the faint sound of drizzle falling over their tent. It’s soothing, despite the steadily increasing coldness. Blake moves closer to the living furnace that is Bucky, seeking out as much heat as she can get. He contently obliges, unzipping both of their sleeping bags so their skin to skin contact provides the warmth they desperately need (not being able to bear the cold).

   “So…what do you want to talk about?” Buck asks quietly, trying to discern Blake’s features in the dark. What he manages to feel, rather than see, is her shoulders lifting in some kind of non-committal shrug -or at least he thinks so. “Guess I’ll go first then”, he says and then stops to think, trying to remember what he wanted to ask her and at the same time deciding which question he should pick first. “Do you remember that time you went into my room and asked me if I needed help?” Buck patiently waits for Blake’s answer, hoping that she can’t see with her enhanced vision that he’s blushing all over. Just the memory of that night is enough to color his cheeks a bright pink. When he finally feels her nod, he continues. “Why did you come in? We weren’t in the best terms back then”.

   The teen stares blankly at the roof of the tent, trying to recall that specific event the Sergeant is talking about. She remembers him acting strangely around her hours prior to her visiting of his room and then, later, hearing odd noises coming from it. She thought that he was having trouble with something; the sounds that he made resembling those of distress. Putting everything between them aside, she went to see if he needed help with something. After all, they didn’t hate each other anymore. “I heard you and I thought that you were upset or something; thought you needed help”.

   Bucky grimaces at her innocence, thinking to himself that she isn’t entirely wrong. He _could_ have used some help, but it wasn’t right at that time. This, in retaliation, makes him think that _this_ time may not be right either. “Well, I wasn’t upset, or hurt, I was actually…pleasuring myself”, he finished rather lamely, wanting to punch himself in the face for acting like a bashful twelve-year-old. Buck doesn’t have to see Blake’s face to notice that she’s probably looking at him with a puzzled expression. “You know, what you did with your hands on my…” The Sarge won’t dare to use the word -or any for that matter-, already feeling embarrassed enough.

   “On your what?” Blake asks, not getting what he’s implying. Bucky sighs heavily, already thinking it would’ve been best to avoid this topic. “Oh, you mean your penis?” At the young woman’s response, Barnes’ cringes and narrowly avoids face-palming. He should’ve expected her to be so blunt about it; still, he can never be prepared enough. Since he doesn’t deny it -or say anything at all, really-, the teen assumes she guessed right. Honestly, though, she just can conceive why this is such an embarrassing subject to talk about. It’s all part of nature; nothing wrong with it.

   “Yeah, that. Anyway, you are welcome to, um, ‘help’ me if you want…next time?” He finishes with a question, hoping that this won’t be the first and last time they engage in such activities. Blake just nods again, dissipating Buck’s worries. The remembrance of that particular moment also brings back what followed the next morning. While recalling this, he waits silently for her to ask something, but as the silence stretches out, he just gives up and continues with the next conversation topic on his list. “Just think about it, no commitment required. Although, I suggest you don’t discuss this so openly with Steve. He already scolded me once that time for being…imprudent.” And looking back at it, he was a little. Bucky can’t even imagine what would’ve happened if he hadn’t covered himself in time -or more like he doesn’t want to because if he does he’s gonna get hard faster than he can blink. “Maybe try talking to Natasha about that stuff. You know, from girl to girl”.

   Blake doesn’t realize what “girl to girl” conversation implies because she doesn’t have any type of gender stigma. She never learned that women talk about certain topics between one another and not with men and vice versa. And even when she doesn’t know Natasha well enough and can’t completely trust her yet, she might give it a try. There are only two other women on the team besides herself, and she’s still wary of Wanda. Hopefully, the both of them will come around and get along just as well.

   “Is there anything _you_ want to ask me?” Bucky asks gently, not wanting to sound demanding or anything. This isn’t an interrogation -they’re just chatting- so he doesn’t want Blake to feel like it is one. He knows from Steve what happened the last time she was put in an interrogation room. While Buck recalls this, Blake rakes through her thoughts, looking for something she might want to ask or talk about. Finally, she finds something that has been irking her ever since it happened.

   “What did you dream about last night?” Blake asks and only gets a poker face for a response. She rolls her eyes at Bucky’s apparent lack of understanding. It’s obvious that he’s playing dumb, what she doesn’t get is why. “I know you were dreaming about _something_ , you were making weird noises again”. With this, she renders him speechless, basically trapped into a corner without escape. “I answered your question; it’s only fair that you do the same”. Her snappy accusation floors him completely, leaving him with an open jaw in pure amazement at her boldness.

   Seeing no other way out but to tell the truth, the Sergeant lets out a deep sigh. “I dreamt about you. The same thing we did earlier. It got me…excited, to say the least”. He finishes smugly after seeing the blush spreading all over Blake’s cheeks and neck. At seeing this -and the shy smile on her face-, Bucky can’t help the feeling of tenderness that arises in him. He caresses the side of her face not lying on the pillow and traces her jawline with his index finger. Never taking his eyes from her, Bucky gently takes her chin between his thumb and index and brings her head closer to him. They both instantly feel the electric current that travels through their bodies when their lips meet.

   The kiss is tender, slow, and filled with adoration. No dance of tongues present, just lips and the occasional gentle bite only to provoke a little but not enough to incite something more. He brings her closer to himself, feeding her his own heat, and she wraps contently around him with arms and legs. They feel like there’s no better place to be than right next to each other, in an embrace full of love and acceptance. This is what they’ve been looking and waiting for all of their lives. And they finally have it.

   “You know”, Bucky says softly after breaking the kiss and looking lovingly into Blake’s eyes. “I’ve been wondering for a while now, about what happened after the party, how you felt about it all”. He hasn’t even finished speaking and he’s already feeling anxious. A thousand different thoughts could have gone through her head in the last month; he can only hope that they have become better over time. At Blake’s lack of response, he decides to elaborate a little bit further in order to encourage her to talk. “It’s just that, a few days before the party we were kind of fighting and mad to each other and then the 7 Minutes in Heaven happened and…well, things were tense ever since, until now. What I want to know is what you thought or felt during that time”.

   The teen looks up at her older teammate and tries to gather all her memories regarding her feelings towards him. She remembers being mad at Bucky for being mad at her and then feeling butterflies in her stomach when they kissed in the utility closet. And after that, she felt confused as hell. “I was trying to figure out what I was feeling at the time. I never experienced anything remotely close to this, so I didn’t understand what my emotions meant. I guess, even though I couldn’t see it then, I was already starting to care about you. And I mean like, more than friends”.

   Buck lets out a sigh of relief, realizing just now that he has been holding his breath. He can quite put into words what her words make him feel; happy, content, hopeful and more. He knows that when she says “more than friends” that’s her way of telling him that she’s in love with him, and this confession is more than he could’ve asked for. By her sudden silence, he can tell that she’s probably blushing all over with embarrassment. The Sarge snuggles even closer to his sort-of-newly-acquired-girlfriend (baby steps, though) and embraces her with his big and strong arms -being extra careful to not hurt her with his metal arm. “I know what you’re feeling, even if you don’t. That’s called being in love, doll”.

   Blake contemplates Bucky’s words, trying to decipher the extent of their meaning. Is she truly in love? It’s that what her feelings represent? How can she tell for sure if she never knew anything resembling affection either from or towards someone else? But from what she read about the subject, he might be right. Besides, she doesn’t think he would lie to her about such things. So the girl opts to take a leap of faith and trust both, her gut and the man laying next to her; the same man that is cradling her between his muscled arms, gently rocking her from side to side.

   Still unfamiliar with the concept of love, the young superhuman asks the one-hundred-year-old super soldier about what being in love entails. Bucky has to rack his mind in search of the appropriate words he can use to answer her. He can’t just say the first thing that comes to mind; otherwise, she’ll get the wrong idea about what awaits her in a relationship. “It’s about caring for someone; about wanting the best for them. When you’re in love, time and space don’t matter. The connection you feel transcends everything and is strong no matter what happens. If you truly love someone, you’ll do anything for them; even give your life in order to save theirs”. Bucky ends rather ruefully, as the idea of the younger female sacrificing herself for him hits him hard enough to make him doubt his desire to be with her. It’s not like any of them is safe in their line of work, but one thing is dying for humanity and another to do so for someone in particular. He doesn’t want her to die for him; he doesn’t think he deserves it. She’s so young and still has her whole life in front of her. He can’t take it away.

   “So, being in love means to take care and protect, right?” Blake tentatively asks and only gets a nod for an answer, as Buck is way too caught up in his thoughts to say anything that he won’t regret later. He doesn’t want to be responsible for her demise in any way, and he knows that’s there’s probably someone better suited to be her partner, but at the same time he has this overprotecting feeling that tells him that he’s the only one that can truly take care of her and ensure her safety. “I don’t have any more questions”.

   The sudden comment breaks the soldier out of his reverie. He was so tangled up in his worries of the future that he even forgot for a second there that the young lady was right in front of him. Once her sentence registers fully in his hazy mind, Bucky nods once again, not finding his voice in order to reply. He doesn’t have any more questions either, or at least none that he wants to ask right now. It would be better if they both went to sleep, as it’s getting quite late. They both wish the other sweet dreams and settle down to try to sleep as comfortably as they can while still embracing. It’s not until a couple of hours later that Blake turns around and Buck, half asleep, takes the opportunity to spoon her.

 

* * *

 

   The violent nightmare suddenly wakes up Blake, who’s trying to calm her agitated breath. Her nearly hysterical state stirs up the man sleeping at her side. Bucky opens his eyes slowly, with difficulty due to the sleep still lingering in him. When he sees Blake breathing heavily and at the brink of tears he wakes up fully, worried that she might be having a panic attack or something of that like. He tries to take her out of her reverie but she seems to be dreaming still or at least being haunted what whatever she just saw.

   “Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?” Bucky asks gently, shaking her lightly in order to get her attention. The girl doesn’t appear to register the other man’s touch at first but after a few seconds she comes back down and acknowledges his presence. She stares at him, with a million things traveling through her mind and only a few of them showing in her telling eyes. He wants so badly to reassure her, to tell her that everything is going to be alright; that they can’t touch her anymore. He won’t let them. But he doesn’t know how to say all of this, even the most direct and honest way seems too hard. So Buck waits silently until she’s ready to speak.

   “I dreamed about it, the ‘Heart of the Sun’”, Blake says kind of mystified, trying to comprehend her dream. She remembered a bit about her past, more specifically about the artifact that her handlers used to give her inhuman powers. On the other side, Bucky just looks at her confused as hell, not having a clue what she’s talking about. The name rings a bell on his head, but he can’t quite place where he heard it before. It might have been from one of Steve’s briefings about her, or -in a more extreme case- he might be remembering it from the time he was under Hydra’s control; from the mission he carried out on the base she was kept.

   “What is that? Does it have anything to do with your powers or your past?” The Sergeant asks tentatively, worried that he might trigger her by saying the wrong word. Albeit his preoccupation, she looks considerately calmer now and her breaths are even. Feeling that she can completely trust her teammate and first lover, she begins recounting her dream to him. Basically what she saw in the dream was the artifact, a glowing sphere that was entirely black and that seemed to be made of pure energy (although an unknown kind). They stole it from Atlantis, the famous “Lost City” that is found deep in the Atlantic Ocean. In there it was used as the main source of energy and it powered the whole city. She has no idea of what happened after they took it away.

   Bucky stares dumbfounded at her, trying to grasp the whole meaning of what she just told him. Her little recount of events actually brings forward a couple of memories he thought lost. He was briefed about the artifact before he was deployed to the lake base. Barnes is now aware what the target of that mission was. For a long time he thought it was her, but now he knows that it was actually the Heart of the Sun. He was supposed to retrieve it for Hydra’s use since it appeared to be even more powerful than Loki’s scepter (which actually held one of the Infinity Stones, but its power was restricted by the encasing of the scepter). He tells her as much only to realize that she has no idea what he’s talking about.

   Instead of explaining what an Infinity Gem is (also cause he barely understands himself) and what went down on the New York incident regarding Loki and the aliens, Bucky opts to share something of equal amount. After all, he knows a lot more about her past than she does about his. “I still dream about it. They erased all the remains of brainwashing but I asked that they don’t delete any memories. I had enough of that to last me for several lifetimes”, he begins bitterly. “The thing I remember the most is the cold, although if it’s from the stasis or the environment I don’t know. I can still feel the recoil from all the shots I took and the sensation of a body going limp while dying”. The soldier still feels haunted by his memories, and he’s sure that he’ll never shake that feeling off. He doesn’t want to, anyway, he understands how important is to remember all that he has done.

   “Most of it is still foggy and scattered; they wiped me every time I was awakened. It’s a miracle that I retain as much as I do. I know it’s not easy”, he says because he knows what horrors she lived through and that she doesn’t remember most of them. It doesn’t take from the fact that somehow she’s still conscious about all that. They went through the same; torture and memory loss. “Mainly I remember the missions, but also a little bit of training other Winter Soldiers. Thankfully that matter has already been dealt with”, he finishes with sarcasm dripping from his voice. Blake knows about everything that went down between her fellow teammates before she got there because Steve deemed important that she knew that part of Bucky history from something other than a report.

   “It’s good to know I’m not the only one being haunted by horrifying memories”, Blake says happily and with confidence, only to realize a second later that what she just said actually sounded awful. She grimaces at this and Bucky just smiles sweetly at her, finding adorable how she blurts out the first things that come to her mind. “I didn’t mean it like that. You know what I meant, hopefully…” And he does, the war veteran has learned to read the young lady since she’s not very good at expressing herself. For all that matters, he has the exact same problem, preferring to keep quiet and let Steve figure out what he’s thinking about.

   “It’s okay, don’t worry. I won’t let them get hold of you again. You’re an Avenger now”. While the former assassin thinks that what he said was rather corny and lame, the teen can’t explain how much it means to her. What he just told her is the equivalent of saying that she has a family now, one that would love her and protect her from any threat whatsoever. Her dream has finally come true. She doesn’t know how to respond, can’t find the right words, so she decides to show him how grateful she is.

   Blake kisses him, softly at first but she gains more confidence by the passing second. Bucky doesn’t lose any time, quickly positioning himself on top of her to take the lead. Things start getting steamy right before Sam bursts into the tent, effectively ruining the mood. “Yo, guys, the rain from last night turned into snow, come on out”. Is way too early in the morning for The Falcon to be so excited about snow, but the exasperated couple of lovebirds who have just been interrupted can’t bring themselves to scold him for it.

   So, they ultimately decide to forego the morning make-out session they were about to carry out in order to get dressed and go out into the biting cold, trying for once to enjoy the weather they’ve grown to hate so much. Blake didn’t physically know the snow before she broke free from the base she was born in. She didn’t like it at first but later learned to tolerate it. Now she has the opportunity to discover the fun side of it. And Bucky can finally reconcile with it too. Thankfully, Steve is waiting by the fire with two mugs of tea ready for them. They take a seat next to each other and in front of the pit, accepting gratefully the mugs of hot drinks.

   The group of four sits and sips in comfortable silence, focusing on not freezing to death for the most part. The landscape covered in white from the ground to the trees is beautiful, but it’s still hard to fully appreciate it when shuddering endlessly. Sam and Steve can’t help the smiles drawing across their faces at the lovely sight of Blake and Bucky snuggling closer to each other on the log they’re sitting on. It’s endearing, to say the least. The two superheroes are happy to see their friends finding joy in being together, and they hope that this will last for as long as it can.

   The tranquil breakfast goes on for a little bit longer until they all finish and Sam decides to start a snowball war before they begin packing everything to hit the road again. The first hit is received by Bucky, who thinks for an instant that they’re under attack. It’s only when he hears Blake’s merry giggles and turns around to see Steve chuckling and Sam laughing his ass off that he realizes he was actually hit with a snowball. Of course, he answers in kind, grabbing snow as fast as he can and compacting it into a big ball before throwing it accurately at Wilson’s face, hitting him square in the jaw. At this, the Sergeant laughs whole-heartedly, enjoying the fact that he’s making Blake laugh. Still, the Soldier and The Falcon can’t leave the other two to stand aside and not participate. So, Sam hits Blake and Bucky hits Steve.

   Thus, they split into two teams, the “Heroes” and the “Lab Rats” (thankfully, said ex-lab rats don’t get offended by the naming of their team by their “adversaries”), and since one of these teams has two enhanced humans it isn’t long before they overpower the other one. This little friendly activity helps the bonding process between the four of them, especially regarding Bucky and Blake -with both covering each other’s backs. Even Barnes’ chivalry has made an appearance, whenever he takes a hit for his beloved. The ruckus and playfulness go on for a while, eventually stopping when everybody notices how wet they are.

   “We should change before we get in the car, otherwise we’ll get the seats wet and we’ll also freeze our butts off”, Steve says, being the voice of reason. It isn’t much later when they already dried off and set for departure. They got a long journey back home, especially with the beetle as their sole way of transportation. The only thing that concerns the Captain is the absence of the spare tire. _Tony must’ve taken it when he hid all the other cars_. And he’s in fact right; he hopes that they don’t get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere on their way back.

   So, they embark on their ride home, seating tight with some blankets thrown over since the heating system is broken. They spend the first few hours in comfortable silence, with Blake and Bucky soundly sleeping together in the backseat while Steve drives and Sam quietly works as the helpful copilot. Little did they know they were about to-

“Please tell me that that noise wasn’t from one of the tires”, Sam says, in the most deadpan fashion, right after Steve and he heard an exploding noise coming from outside the car. Rogers can only look at his copilot with a blank face, already knowing that they just got a flat tire. “ _Please_ tell me that there’s a spare in this car…” And again, the Captain can only stare with an unspoken apology written all over his face. “You’ve got to be kidding me”. Sam can’t help the exasperation consuming him. Everything was going well and this had to happen.

   “The thing is…Tony took the spare tire, and the next town is five miles away. We’re going to have to walk”, Steve says discouraged, already dreading the whole ordeal. They’ll have to take the damaged tire with them and then find a place where they can fix it -if there’s one in the closest town. Of course, not all of them can go; seeing as Blake and Bucky are peacefully sleeping, Steve decides to let them stay in the car. He says so to Sam, who grudgingly agrees; he would rather stay in the car, but the Cap manages to convince him that they should let the recently-got-together couple to have some more alone time, even if they spend it solely sleeping. Before they go, Rogers wakes up Bucky to let him know what happened and where they’re going. The Sergeant nods half asleep and answers that he’ll inform Blake if she awakens before they come back.

   And so The Falcon and Captain America depart on their search for a workshop where they can fix their tire. Thankfully for them, it isn’t too hot or windy, so the walk won’t be much of a bother. It’s already noon, so they might also buy something to eat when they leave the town and come back to the car so they can eat lunch before they reassume their trip. If they hurry, they’ll probably be back on the road before nightfall.

   Meanwhile, Buck can’t fall back asleep and consequently wakes up Blake too, who groggily asks where Steve and Sam are. He tells her everything that happened and that they’re alone until the other two come back with the fixed tire. The couple stays in what starts as comfortable silence but soon becomes a rather awkward one. Their interactions the day before ended up being fluent, but they still have to accustom themselves to the parameters of a relationship. It’s not going to be easy for either of them. Blake’s never been in a relationship, and Bucky barely remembers what is like to be in one. The Sarge can’t help but wonder how it was so simple yesterday when they did way more than just talk and be near each other.

   Looking back on last day’s activities, Bucky begins to feel anxiety and fear rising in him at the sudden notion that they just went from hardly speaking to each other to having passionate sex, then to talking about really deep things and back again to uncomfortable silence, all in the span of twenty-four hours. He looks at Blake, who’s sitting next to him, apparently looking at nothing in particular, and blurts out what’s been bothering since yesterday’s afternoon. “Don’t you think this could’ve been a little rash?” He asks with a concerned expression, wanting to kick himself for asking such a thing out of nowhere without even giving the poor girl some context about what he’s talking about.

   It takes half a minute of staring at Bucky looking away for her to understand what he’s referring to. When she finally does, she considers his question in order to give a truthful answer. She knows that lying it’s not an option, because he’ll find out and because there’s no point in starting a relationship with dishonesty from either of their sides. “It was, but it felt…right”. She knows from somewhere that the development of their relationship has been fast and tumultuous, but she thinks that she wouldn’t have it any other way. It does feel right to her, even if she might not know hell about the whole thing.

   Bucky isn’t really convinced by her answer; by this point, his paranoia has taken hold of him, making him incapable of believing her since he considers that she’s probably just telling him what he wants to hear, like she probably did under the control of the organization that kept her captive for most of her life. Even if she were telling the truth it would be a warped one -in his opinion-, since she doesn’t have any previous experiences to compare this one to. So, in Buck’s mind, whatever she says doesn’t count, and in retaliation, this pisses him off very much. “I don’t even know why I’m asking, of course it was rushed. You don’t even know what you’re feeling, so how should you know how a normal relationship even works?” He doesn’t mean to offend her; he’s just being -in his honest opinion- understanding about her situation. Instead, what he achieves is to make her mad at his apparent disregard of her feelings (something that might be common around the male population: clear misunderstanding of female’s emotions).

   Blake doesn’t even try to hide the scowl on her face. Since she became a free person, she has found a lot of satisfaction in letting herself get angry -but only as long as she didn’t lose control. She’s about to put Barnes’ back in his place. “You might be right about me not knowing much regarding human relationships but don’t you even dare to assume I have no idea what I’m feeling. That’s the only thing I’m sure about; not my knowledge and not my memories, the only thing I know for a damn fact is that I love you!” When Blake finishes her tirade, she’s breathing heavily. At first, the realization of what she just confessed doesn’t hit her, but when it does the blood drains from her face before she starts blushing furiously. The teen looks up at the older male, not wanting to but unable to resist. He’s staring back at her, completely flabbergasted.

   _She just said that she loves me?!_ An incredulous Barnes’ asks himself, not being able to cope with the magnitude of such revelation. He can’t even remember when was the last time someone told him that they loved him; he doesn’t even know if anyone besides his family told him something like that. The Sarge remembers dating several girls, but he can’t recall ever going serious with any of them. There’s a second when he thinks that he should say that he loves her too, but he gets so scared and anxious all of the sudden that he opts for keeping silent and not say it until he feels ready. So, instead, he just cradles her face between both of his hands and leans in to kiss her deeply, trying to convey in that simple action everything that he feels. Fortunately, she understands his unspoken answer and settles for kissing him back, also pouring all of her heart in their synchronized movement of lips and tongues. Love is in the air, and that’s all that matters now.

 

* * *

 

   “Thank God they were open. Only garage in town that could patch up tires and we managed to get there just five minutes before they closed for the day. And we got some sweet sandwiches too. If it weren’t for the whole walking from and back to the car we would’ve really lucky”. Sam spirits have been raised by the prospect of food and the resolution of their problem. Despite what he just said, their good luck resided mostly in the repair of the tire, five more minutes and they would’ve been stuck in that town until tomorrow morning at least. Nevertheless, everything has been solved rather quickly and without any complications whatsoever, so now they’re on their way back to the car, ready to put the tire back in place and begin once again their journey back to the compound; back _home_.

   “And it also was surprisingly cheap for being the only workshop in a town that’s surrounded by miles of nothing but crops. And that old lady was so nice to prepare these sandwiches for us even when she already had closed her-” Steve is suddenly interrupted by the ringing of his phone -which of course, with it being Stark tech, has signal everywhere in the world-, so he takes it out of his pocket only to see Tony’s name come up as the caller ID. He lets out a long sigh, knowing that what awaits him on the other side of the line is an annoying Stark wanting to get on his nerves. Ultimately -aware that not answering is not an option since he’ll insist-, he picks up. “Hey, Tony, how’s it going over there?” He looks at Sam, who’s already rolling his eyes at the predictability of Iron Man’s call.

   “It’s wonderful in here, we all got deliciously tanned and some are already considering going back. Honestly, I kind of miss you guys. So, did you fix that flat tire yet?” Steve immediately stops when hearing Tony’s last sentence. _How the hell does he know?_ He wonders before asking out loud, which he doesn’t have to after all since Stark just spills the beans with a tone resembling pride -wrongly attributed, of course.  “I bugged the car, that’s how I know. And before you get all judgmental on me and start scolding me for being an asshole and all that, I bugged _all_ the cars equally, so it wasn’t personal, mostly”. Tony finishes smugly; picturing how red Steve’s face must be from all the anger he’s feeling. Rogers doesn’t know what makes him angrier, that Stark knew about the car, that he stole the spare tire or that he freaking bugged it. Now he realizes that this has been his plan all along, just to bother the hell out of them. He wants nothing else than to punch Stark in the face for being a jerk, but then again he remembers that this is Tony, after all, so he shouldn’t be surprised. “By the way, we all just heard the couple’s discussion and it was tense, they made up though, so everything is cool”.

   Steve hangs up right after that last comment, not being able to bear any more of Tony’s dick self and beginning to feel concerned for his best friend and the teen. “What could have happened?” Sam asks, expressing what they’re both wondering about. They both pick up their pace in order to get back sooner to find out if everything is fine between the two superhumans.

   It’s been a couple of hours since Steve and Sam left the car to go to the nearest town. They have come back now, with a fixed tire and lunch, only to find Bucky and Blake cuddling and snuggling on the back seat, looking like a lovey-dovey couple of teenage lovers. Both of the recently arrived superheroes smile broadly at the sight in front of them, turning to each other to exchange a knowing smirk and silently congratulating themselves on the success of their plan. It just took a little push to stir Bucky in the right direction to get him together with Blake, but it was worth all the drama and dancing around that the two former lab rats endured the last couple of months. They finally got the happy ending they deserve.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little trip to Paris is next to come, and a big reveal too.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a wild idea that I had and wanted to see how it would work out written, so if you're curious enough hop up with me and let's ride this train together! :D
> 
> And of course, any comment and feedback will be appreciated. Thank you for reading. <3


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